Review of Nützenadel, Alexander and Trentmann, F. eds. 'Food and Globalization: Consumption, markets and Politics in the Modern World': (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2008). PP. 400. ISBN (cloth) 978-1-84520-678. RRP GBP 60-00. ISBN (paper) 978-1-84520 679-6. RRP GBP 19-99.

Abstract

The initial focus of this recent and astonishingly wide-ranging book is deemed to be 'globalization', but not merely in the sense of the common characteristics that followed on the 1960s use of McCluhan's term, 'the global village'. Indeed, this work is concerned to tum on its head most notions of globalism / globalization that have been bandied around, first by the media and then by governments in the last 30 to 40 years. The present review writer had treated of globalization in this journal in earlier issues, but this present text goes far beyond the/ his hitherto conservative use of the term, 'global'. While some put the 'global' word as truly flourishing at the 1980s, others now see it present in fact at the period between 1870 and 1914, a period which, as this work argues, is marked by 'an integrated global food and trade system' (p. 4). Rather is it, this bandied around word, now more properly to be seen as a term to embrace the earliest activity on the surface of this planet - ensuring the survival of one's own community, whether it is a large or a smaller one - and this may be shown by the closer exploring of the various areas of known trade and economic history.