An Edible History of Humanity

By: Tom Standage

Narrated by: George K. Wilson

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst of social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy, entertaining account of how a series of changes---caused, enabled, or influenced by food---has helped to shape and transform societies around the world.

©2009 Tom Standage (P)2009 Tantor

A big heaping feast of history

An Edible History is a wide world history of food, agriculture, and society. Standage, who wrote the wonderful book "The Victorian Internet" about the rise and role of the telegraph, writes even more comprehensively about food and it's role in history. It's rich with detail and yet paints a broad picture of food, economics, and science across thousands of years and the entire globe. The audio production is crisp, even with the occasional strangely acted-accented quotation.

A high quality, well written work translated effectively for the audio format.

Flawed, but still worth a read

This book lacks the intellectual brilliance of Michael Pollan's work, and the reader is slow and ponderous. Still, there are a number of interesting historical perspectives on the history of food.

Very concise and simple

I am a big fan of world history books. Tom Standage is one of the best. I listened to the History of the world in Six Glasses first, which I also highly recommended. This is another first rate title, which I felt achieved its end in a lot fewer words than say, Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It is along the same lines as some other books I endorse. 1491 and 1493. One of which I read and the other I listened to. If you have ever wondered where the food we take for granted came from this book traces the history of such things as potatoes, corn and rice in great detail. It compares today's computer driven science to the the science of food production in the previous centuries. He makes the point that half of us wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for the breakthrough of fixing nitrogen from the air into the soil and further creating more efficient genetic hybrid dwarf plants to feed our ever increasing population. I found the fact that sugar can be produced on a small amount of land, even though it is labor intensive is probably a good reason for it's proliferation as a cheap additive to our burgeoning food supply. I discovered that rice can be grown in poor soil and never needs to be rotated like wheat or potatoes. No wonder we have so many people in Asia. I also found it interesting that most of the successful countries got that way by first securing their own food supply and then diversifying their economies into other areas. This was a great pleasure to listen to and my attention only flagged at a few points during this great book. Otherwise I would have given it five stars all the way. What could be more sacred than man's connection to food.

Interesting, but nothing ground-breaking

This book had plenty of information regarding the affects of food on the history of the world. However, I found little ground-breaking or truly new information in it. The performance was good but the book itself was not very entertaining.

An enjoyable bite of history

Where does An Edible History of Humanity rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Of all the books I have listened to, this is average. But I would like to think that I have listened to some rather good books over the years.

What did you like best about this story?

I loved the entwining of food into history. The book touched on many of my favorite reading topics, history, culture, politics, science and economics. It tied in many diciplines rather well.

What about George K. Wilson’s performance did you like?

Consistent and unobtrusive.

Excellent brief economic history of food

天下無不散的筵席
“There is no feast that does not come to an end.” —Chinese proverb

Great first book to finish this year after all the feasting I did in the last.
Standage does a superb job of weaving together a brief story of the economic history of food. Arguably not as good as his “History of the World in Six Glasses,” but still good. An interesting account of the compounding of nitrogen and hydrogen to produce economically efficient ammonia (by the Nobel prize winning scientists Haber and Bosch), which is the reason most of us are alive today, since it kicked off the green revolution and enable the population explosion of the 20th century. This fact alone accounts for the rise of China to feed itself and become one of the wealthiest nations of the 21st century. Learn how all of our food is essentially genetically modified and that we will never go back to “naturally grown food.” Carrots are orange only because a 16th century scientist decided to modify it out of a whim in honor of William of Orange. Corn comes from teosinte in Meso-America, a small grass that has been modified beyond recognition thousands of years ago. South America gave us the potato, and without both of these foods most of our ancestors wouldn’t have survived. Learn about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, the largest and most secure seed vault in the world, that in many ways is the hope of humanity’s physical survival.

great historical perspective

book is well done but already outdated. could have skipped the authentic version voices on extended quotes.

Interesting information, distracting accents

The information contained in this book is excellent, full and very interesting. I was disappointed with the frustrating narration and slightly stilted organization of the writing. Regardless of the minor writing style distractions and the major narration distractions, I would highly recommend the book.

I recently read Tom Standage's "History of the World in 6 Glasses." Similar to "An Edible History of Humanity," 6 glasses is a not-quite-chronological and broad-ranging history of the world focused on one aspect of humanity. Also similar to 6 glasses, Edible History is organized what feels like a 5 paragraph essay format or a textbook chapter. Standage starts with his general introduction to the chapter topic, fills it out with specific examples, interesting details and related stories or anecdotes. Unfortunately, he tends to then restate his "thesis" or the main chapter points before moving on to a related but separate topic which he introduces using similar phrasing to the previous topic introduction. I found this annoying at first (in both books) but was less bothered as the audiobook progressed (I skimmed the summaries in the 6 glasses book which I read instead of listening to).

The narrator's faults I had more trouble moving past. When the book began I thought I was listening to a filmstrip narration or an educational video being show during a particularly boring elementary school class. Later, when I had come to terms with the filmstrip-voice (though I never liked it), I was pained by the voices used by the narrator to distinguish quotes from various famous characters in the book. The Christopher Columbus voice was annoying, the Adam Smith voice was painful and the French pronunciation was painful to anyone who doesn't expect a nasal R in people and place names.

My frustrations with repetition and terrible narration aside, I enjoyed the book greatly. I was particularly pleased with some explanations on various topics that were more complete and more clear (except when spoken in French) than those I have read in previous books. I tend to devour a lot of this sort of book--idiosyncratic histories of specific topics--and I felt like this book was a complement to those I have read. On the few occasions when the author repeated information I already knew, he generally quickly related it to his topic of food and other ideas he had also been discussing.

Though the book suggests it will simply be a history of food, the author does an excellent job of integrating and incorporating politics, world events and individual experiences into his interpretation. I look forward to reading more of Tom Standage's work (hopefully with a different narrator).

There were a few remarkable specific areas where Standage improved upon my previous understanding of events or issues. Standage gave a much better explanation of the development of maize than I encountered in my previous reading (particularly Gavin Menzies' problematic 1421). I also was fascinated with the discussion of the health benefits of hunter-gather societies over agricultural ones and the explanation of why the nutritionally inferior agriculture took over and transformed the world.

Unfortunately I took notes for this book on my iPhone Audible App and the automatic spelling correction has replaced my note about something in 6000BCE in the near east with "bug blogs" I'm guessing they didn't have bug blogs in 6000BCE, so I'll have to go back and figure that out.

Delicious Story from Stem to Stem

Would you consider the audio edition of An Edible History of Humanity to be better than the print version?

The audio version ofers a layer of depth unseen, or better yet unheard, in the print version. Standage's word jump to life with Wilson's naration as each story of the long history of food unfolds.

What does George K. Wilson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Comprehensive for the most part allows me as a listener to understand the story a lot more than simply reading it.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book for the most part made me hungry everytime I read it passed midnight. But what most suprised me is how pivital food is to various aspects of our world. I especially love how Standage broke the book into sections which focused on foods key issues. Like how farming came about to how food let to the fall of Communist Soviet Union.

Any additional comments?

Great read, especially since we all love food. This provide one of the best backgrounds of history around food to explain the mandane to extraordinary. Bon appetit!

Not as fun as drinks

I thoroughly enjoyed Standage's history of the world in six glasses, so this was a bit of a disappointment. Still, the story was solid, well-sourced, and interesting. The bit about spices in particular, along with the green revolution and the importance of GMO crops and pesticides was quite interesting and edifying. Malthus was wrong, but we still need more innovation in agriculture.