New Book - Empires of Food by Evan D.G. Fraser and Andrew Rimas

"Across 12,000 years of history, Empires of Food lays out in clear and compelling terms the ways our world has been shaped by the repeated, head-on collision between politics and the production, transportation and consumption of food." (Civil Eats)

This book draws lessons and examples from how food played its role in various civilizations throughout history to illustrate the dangers and issues surrounding our current food system. The central idea being, let us learn from the past failures and successes in food production and both apply those lessons and take them as warnings that our current food system is simply not sustainable and that "when the oil runs out (and it will run out), the current food empire run by the likes of Monsanto, ADM and ConAgra will face a 50% loss in fertility and 170 million more empty mouths to feed."

Despite the somewhat downcast perspective of this book, I completely agree with its core principle of learning about where we have come from in order to understand where we are going. I also am curious to learn more about how pre-modern civilizations fed themselves. I look forward to reading this book, after all the others ahead of it on my to-read list!