Description:
How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World
The story of how a humble vegetable, once regarded as trash food, had as revolutionary an impact on Western history as the railroad or the auto. Using Ireland, England, France and the U.S. as examples, Larry Zuckerman shows how daily life from the 1770s until WWI would have been unrecognizable—perhaps impossible—without the potato, which functioned as fast food, famine insurance, fuel and labor saver, budget stretcher, and bank loan, as well as delicacy. Drawing on personal diaries, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, and other primary sources, this is popular social history at its liveliest and most illuminating.
