Feast and Famine: A History of Food and Nutrition in Ireland 1500-1920 [Hardcover]

L. A. Clarkson (Author), E. Margaret Crawford (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198227515 | ISBN-13: 978-0198227519 | Publication Date: February 7, 2002

Feast and Famine traces the history of food and famine in Ireland from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. It looks at what people ate and drank, and how this changed over time. The authors explore the economic and social forces which lay behind these changes as well as the more personal motives of taste, preference, and acceptability. They analyze the reasons why the potato became a major component of the diet for so many people during the eighteenth century as well as the diets of the middling and upper classes. The authors also look at the relationship between the supply of food and the growth of the population and then finally, and unavoidably in any history of the Irish and food, the issue of famine, examining first its likelihood and then its dreadful reality when it actually occurred.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Clarkson and Crawford deserve to be congratulated on putting famine into perspective as part of the dietary history of Ireland."--Albion

"This book rescues food and nutrition from what the authors call the basement of history... the study of history with food and drink omitted is incomplete history, and this book is an important demonstration of that maxim."--Europe: Early Modern and Modern

About the Author

Leslie Clarkson is a Professor Emeritus of Social History, The Queen's University of Belfast. Margaret Crawford is a Senior Research Fellow, The Queen's University of Belfast.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198227515
• ISBN-13: 978-0198227519
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,693,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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