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Political Gastronomy
- Food and Authority in the English Atlantic World (Early American Studies)
- Narrated by: Andrew S. Troth
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
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Political Gastronomy
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Publisher's summary
"The table constitutes a kind of tie between the bargainer and the bargained-with, and makes the diners more willing to receive certain impressions, to submit to certain influences: from this is born political gastronomy. Meals have become a means of governing, and the fate of whole peoples is decided at a banquet." (Jean Anthèlme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy)
The first Thanksgiving at Plymouth in 1621 was a powerfully symbolic event and not merely the pageant of abundance that we still reenact today. In these early encounters between Indians and English in North America, food was also symbolic of power: The venison brought to Plymouth by the Indians, for example, was resonant of both masculine skill with weapons and the status of the men who offered it. These meanings were clearly understood by Plymouth's leaders, however weak they appeared in comparison.
Political Gastronomy examines the meaning of food in its many facets: planting, gathering, hunting, cooking, shared meals, and the daily labor that sustained ordinary households. Public occasions such as the first Thanksgiving could be used to reinforce claims to status and precedence, but even seemingly trivial gestures could dramatize the tense negotiations of status and authority: an offer of roast squirrel or a spoonful of beer, a guest's refusal to accept his place at the table, the presence and type of utensils, whether hands should be washed or napkins used. Historian Michael A. LaCombe places Anglo-Indian encounters at the center of his study, and his wide-ranging research shows that despite their many differences in language, culture, and beliefs, English settlers and American Indians were able to communicate reciprocally in the symbolic language of food.
The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
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By: Sidney W. Mintz
-
Love and Hate in Jamestown
- John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation
- By: David A. Price
- Narrated by: Josh Innerst
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Drawing on period letters and chronicles, and on the papers of the Virginia Company - which financed the settlement of Jamestown - David Price tells a tale of cowardice and courage, stupidity and brilliance, tragedy and costly triumph. He takes us into the day-to-day existence of the English men and women whose charge was to find gold and a route to the Orient, and who found, instead, hardship and wretched misery. Death, in fact, became the settlers' most faithful companion, and their infighting was ceaseless.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Five Star History!
- By Damian on 08-13-23
By: David A. Price
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1619
- Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy
- By: James Horn
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 124
Along the banks of the James River, Virginia, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a few weeks of each other that would profoundly shape the course of history. In the newly built church at Jamestown, the General Assembly - the first gathering of a representative governing body in America - came together. A few weeks later, a battered privateer entered the Chesapeake Bay carrying the first African slaves to land on mainland English America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant!
- By HonestOpin on 05-06-19
By: James Horn
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The Famine Plot
- England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy
- By: Tim Pat Coogan
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 132
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
In this sweeping history, Ireland's best-known historian, Tim Pat Coogan, tackles the dark history of the Irish Famine and argues that it constituted one of the first acts of genocide. In what the Boston Globe calls "his greatest achievement", Coogan shows how the British government hid behind the smoke screen of laissez faire economics, the invocation of divine providence, and a carefully orchestrated publicity campaign, allowing more than a million people to die agonizing deaths and driving a further million into emigration.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Atrocities abound.
- By GMJ on 06-05-18
By: Tim Pat Coogan
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Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies—vibrant, imaginative experiments in self-governance and alternative social formations at the edges of the European empire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A fun historical analysis of Pirate political systems
- By Ian Turner on 01-30-23
By: David Graeber
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The Iroquois and Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier
- By: Timothy J. Shannon
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Distinguished history professor and author Timothy J. Shannon is a recognized expert on the Indians of colonial America. In this concise study of Iroquois diplomacy, Shannon paints a vivid picture of the American frontier's most successful Indian confederacy. This enlightening narrative explores the shrewd, sometimes treacherous, tactics the Iroquois used to withstand the juggernaut of colonization.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pleasant surprise
- By Robert B. Golson on 12-23-08
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A Bite-Sized History of France
- Gastronomic Tales of Revolution, War, and Enlightenment
- By: Stephane Henaut, Jeni Mitchell
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 472
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 407
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 408
From the cassoulet that won a war to the crêpe that doomed Napoleon, from the rebellions sparked by bread and salt to the new cuisines forged by empire, the history of France is intimately entwined with its gastronomic pursuits. A witty exploration of the facts and legends surrounding some of the most popular French foods and wines by a French cheesemonger and an American academic, A Bite-Sized History of France tells the compelling and often surprising story of France from the Roman era to modern times.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great stories, but...
- By David on 01-12-20
By: Stephane Henaut, and others
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Albion's Seed
- Four British Folkways in America, Vol. 1
- By: David Hackett Fischer
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 29 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 553
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 469
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 468
This fascinating audiobook is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This is great, much more than title suggests
- By Kindle Customer on 07-26-14
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American Slavery, American Freedom
- By: Edmund S. Morgan
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 132
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 130
"If it is possible to understand the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom, Virginia is surely the place to begin," writes Edmund S. Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom, a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America. Morgan finds the key to this central paradox in the people and politics of the state that was both the birthplace of the revolution and the largest slaveholding state in the country.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Explaining the great American contradiction
- By Roger on 09-16-14
By: Edmund S. Morgan
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Conquistadores
- A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest
- By: Fernando Cervantes
- Narrated by: Luis Soto
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 101
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 101
Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus' first landing in the Caribbean in 1492, Spain conquered the two most powerful civilizations of the Americas: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and the other explorers and soldiers who took part in these expeditions dedicated their lives to seeking political and religious glory, helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. But centuries later, these conquistadors have become the stuff of nightmares.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A fresh mature perspective on the Spanish conquest
- By Chencheno111 on 03-19-22
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The Barbarous Years
- The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675
- By: Bernard Bailyn
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4 out of 5 stars 101
Bernard Bailyn gives us a compelling account of the first great transit of people from Britain, Europe, and Africa to British North America, their involvements with each other, and their struggles with the indigenous peoples of the eastern seaboard.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A feast for genealogy/history buffs
- By judithh on 07-21-16
By: Bernard Bailyn
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Covered with Night
- A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America
- By: Nicole Eustace
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
On the eve of a major treaty conference between Iroquois leaders and European colonists in the distant summer of 1722, two White fur traders attacked an Indigenous hunter and left him for dead near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. This act of brutality set into motion a remarkable series of criminal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations that challenged the definition of justice in early America. Leading historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the crime and its aftermath, bringing us into the overlapping worlds of white colonists and Indigenous peoples in this formative period.
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2 out of 5 stars
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YES! I GET IT! I've read history before - JUST STOP!!!!! British settlers were arrogant jerks!! Aaaaaaaargh
- By Anonymous From MA on 06-02-22
By: Nicole Eustace
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George Washington: The Founding Father (Eminent Lives)
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
By far the most important figure in the history of the United States, George Washington liberated the 13 colonies from the superior forces of the British Empire against all military odds, and presided over the production and ratification of a constitution that (suitably amended) has lasted for more than 200 years. Yet today, Washington remains a distant figure to many Americans, a failing that acclaimed author Paul Johnson sets out to rectify with this brilliantly vivid, sharply etched portrait.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Ideology interferes with story line
- By Miranda on 05-01-15
By: Paul Johnson
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The Birth of Classical Europe
- A History from Troy to Augustine
- By: Simon Price, Peter Thonemann
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4 out of 5 stars 114
To an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world. At every level, from languages to calendars to political systems, we are the descendants of a “classical Europe,” using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures. As this consistently fresh and surprising new audio book makes clear, however, this was no less true for the inhabitants of those classical civilizations themselves, whose myths, history, and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past - one filled with great leaders and writers....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent overview of the Classical World
- By David I. Williams on 01-12-14
By: Simon Price, and others
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The Company
- The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
The Hudson’s Bay Company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the indigenous inhabitants of inland subarctic Canada. Controlled by a handful of English aristocrats, it expanded into a powerful political force that ruled the lives of many thousands of people - from the lowlands south and west of Hudson Bay, to the tundra, the great plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deserves higher rating.
- By Pat Newell on 05-22-21
By: Stephen R. Bown
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New England Bound
- Slavery and Colonization in Early America
- By: Wendy Warren
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
In a work that fundamentally recasts the history of colonial America, Wendy Warren shows how the institution of slavery was inexorably linked with the first century of English colonization of New England. While most histories of slavery in early America confine themselves to the Southern colonies and the Caribbean, New England Bound forcefully widens the historical aperture to include the entirety of English North America.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Don't waste your time or money
- By Dis Carded on 09-03-17
By: Wendy Warren
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The Arawak: The History and Legacy of the Indigenous Natives in South America and the Caribbean
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Dan Gallagher
- Length: 1 hr and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 71
The Arawak: The History and Legacy of the Indigenous Natives in South America and the Caribbean examines the culture and history of the indigenous groups and what happened when they came into contact with the Europeans. You will learn about the Arawak like never before.
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3 out of 5 stars
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good content, terrible pronunciation by reader.
- By takajej on 11-04-19
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