Hungry Empire: Food Shaped the Modern World

"The Hungry Empire" selects twenty delicacies as an entry point for studying the history of the British Empire. Through historical events such as how Africans taught Americans to grow rice, how the East India Company turned opium into tea, and how Americans became the best-fed people in the world, it elaborates on the historical process of economic and trade development, species migration, personnel flow, and technological innovation between Britain and its colonies from the 16th century to the present. Virtually every meal we eat today still contains a taste of the Empire. From the Far East to the New World, from cod and beef to spices, tea and sugar, the empire used edible resources around the world to enable the British people to bid farewell to poverty, monotony and despair, and usher in an era of abundant food. In her fresh and unique telling, author Lizzie Clingham vividly depicts the key role these foods played in a key period of British history, bringing a new perspective to understanding the formation of empire. Food, like other historical materials, reflects the civilization process and social trends of a period. This book not only presents a vivid picture of the social, cultural and material life of the British Empire during the colonial period, but also provides a valuable reference for understanding social life and cultural exchanges in Britain. It also opens up a new path for understanding the formation and development of capitalist economy and modern world civilization.