Editorial Reviews
The Potato tells 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 automobile. Using
Ireland, England, France, and the United States as examples,
Larry Zuckerman shows how daily life from the 1770s until
World War I 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.
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