Read for my anthropology of food class. Definitely not something that I would have normally chosen to read (history is not my favorite genre is non-fiction is rare enough for me tbh), but i LOVED this. This, along with Eating to Extinction (the other book we were assigned to read throughout the semester), have entirely changed my outlook on, well, everything.

It changes my outlook not only on food, but on culture, capitalism, states, and the world. A large part of our lectures is discussing whether we'd live without a state today-- we couldn't, because we've lost all knowledge of it, and if one state disappears, another is going to come along to snatch the land up before it's ever free. He discusses the good outcomes of the state as well, but after reading this and Saladino's work (mentioned above), there barely are any. His ironic uses of the term "barbarian" is phenomenal and petty while continuing to be educational, analytical, and purely research based.

This book and Saladino's Eating to Extinction are the only two books that I've read page to page and genuinely enjoyed throughout the entirety of me being in school-- and I'm graduating college in a month. I'm keeping my school copy of both of them and can definitely see myself reading it again in the future.