Potato

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Buy on Amazon Buy on Waterstones.com
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 21 Mar 2019 | Archive Date 21 Mar 2019

Talking about this book? Use #Potato #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!


Description

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Baked potatoes, Bombay potatoes, pommes frites . . . everyone eats potatoes, but what do they mean? To the United Nations they mean global food security (potatoes are the world's fourth most important food crop). To 18th-century philosophers they promised happiness. Nutritionists warn that too many increase your risk of hypertension. For the poet Seamus Heaney they conjured up both his mother and the 19th-century Irish famine.

What stories lie behind the ordinary potato? The potato is entangled with the birth of the liberal state and the idea that individuals, rather than communities, should form the building blocks of society. Potatoes also speak about family, and our quest for communion with the universe. Thinking about potatoes turns out to be a good way of thinking about some of the important tensions in our world.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Baked potatoes, Bombay potatoes, pommes frites . . . everyone eats potatoes, but what do...


Available Editions

EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9781501344312
PRICE US$14.95 (USD)

Average rating from 37 members


Featured Reviews

This book was received as an ARC from Bloomsbury Academic in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

What really attracted me to this book was the simplicity of the cover just being the humble potato. The brilliant mind of Rebecca Earle described the potato like it was the meaning of life and she expressed how just a simple vegetable has many meanings to many people and is not just for eating. I also was really curious when I found out that this was a series and can't wait to see what concepts Earle describes throughout the series on my favorite vegetable. Brilliantly written and beautifully executed.

We will definitely consider adding this title to our Non-Fiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

Was this review helpful?

My favorite kind of history book—and it doesn't hurt that I'm a sucker for food history. Delves into poetry, art, politics, labor, and philosophy, all connected by the potato. I learned several fascinating and provoking things. I'll be looking for more books in this series (Object Lessons).

Was this review helpful?

Readers who liked this book also liked: