Fat: such a little word evokes big responses. While ‘fat’ describes the size and shape of bodies, our negative reactions to corpulent bodies also depend on something tangible and tactile; as this book argues, there is more to fat than meets the eye. Fat: A Cultural History of the Stuff of Life offers a historical reflection on how fat has been perceived and imagined in the West since antiquity. Featuring fascinating historical accounts, philosophical, religious and cultural argume...

Honour, Violence and Emotions in History is the first book to draw on emerging cross-disciplinary scholarship on the study of emotions to analyse the history of honour and violence across a broad range of cultures and regions.Written by leading cultural and social historians from around the world, the book considers how emotions - particularly shame, anger, disgust, jealousy, despair and fear - have been provoked and expressed through culturally-embedded and historically s...

"Fat". In contemporary society the word never fails to elicit powerful emotions, especially as it relates to bodily health and appearance. But fat is a noun as well as an adjective and has a cultural life outside of its relationship with the human body. By focusing on the complex physical and experiential dimensions of this problematic substance, Fat: Culture and Materiality breaks new ground in the study of the relationship between culture and the material world.With cont...

This shorter book on Erasmus might be considered a companion to Huizinga's most famous work, The Waning of the Middle Ages. While in his magnum opus he presented a study of the forms of life and thought in France and the Netherlands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in this one the subject is the central intellectual figure of the next generation after the period which Huizinga called the waning, or rather the autumn, of the Middle Ages. It was first published in 1924, and so belo...

One of the most iconic, beloved, and bestselling books of our time from the bestselling author of City of Girls and Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert.Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love touched the world and changed countless lives, inspiring and empowering millions of readers to search for their own best selves. Now, this beloved and iconic book returns in a beautiful 10th anniversary edition, complete with an updated introduction from the auth...

This is Madge’s story, one of five stories extracted from THE SWEETHEARTS.Whether in wartime or peace, tales of love, laughter and hardship from the girls in the Rowntrees factory in Yorkshire.“On the morning of her Rowntrees job interview, on a warm Monday morning in July 1932, Fourteen-year-old Madge Fisher stood fidgeting in the hallway of her terraced house while her mother, Margaret, pinned up her hair and then inspected her from top to toe. ‘Hands,’ her mother said, an...

With barbecue being one of the most popular summer activities, it is no wonder that there are so many different BBQ cookbooks to be found. But how many times have you had to jump from one book to the other because neither of them contains all the recipes that you need? How many times did you end up ordering guides labeled as the best BBQ cookbooks, only to be presented with a bunch of recipes nobody really even likes? True barbecue fans find this to be a great source of discomfort, which i...

Over the past few years, Hardwick, Vermont, a typical hardscrabble farming community of 3,000 residents, has jump-started its economy and redefined its self-image through a local, self-sustaining food system unlike anything else in America. Even as the recent financial downturn threatens to cripple small businesses and privately owned farms, a stunning number of food-based businesses have grown in the region. The Town That Food Saved is rich with appealing, colorful characters, fr...

This is the remarkable story of tea and its uses from ancient times to the present. The narrative takes the reader from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the splendour of the Tang and Song Dynasties in China, from the tea ceremony aesthetics of medieval Japan to the fabled tea and horse trade of Central Asia, from the advent of Britains love affair with tea to the tea party that sparked the American Revolution. Throughout the centuries, tea has inspired artists, enhanced religious experienc...

The Prince's Speech is a stirring, thought-provoking, and ultimately hopeful call to action from one of the world's leading proponents of sustainable farming practices, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

"A remarkable book, which in an entertaining way takes a deep dive into our bodies . . . you'll never see (or taste) food the same way again!" —Martin Lindstrom, New York Times–bestselling authorA Belgian chocolate cake topped with a velvety homemade mousse catches your eye on the menu. The next thing you know, you've ordered it—despite the hefty price. But do you know why?Through over 40 compelling questions, this book explores how our eating decisi...

If a city is its people, and its people are what they eat, then shouldn’t food play a larger role in our dialogue about how and where we live? The food of a metropolis is essential to its character. Native plants, proximity to farmland, the locations of supermarkets, immigration, the role chefs can and should play in society - how a city nourishes itself makes a statement about the kind of city it is.With a cornucopia of essays on comestibles, The Edible City considers how...