Potato Pb: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World

by Larry Zuckerman (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  1999

  $21.25

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $3.29

  Following the potato from its early cultivation in 16th-century South America to its 20th-century marriage to battered fish, this social history covers developments in agriculture, class, diet, politics, economics, and technology. For two centuries after the potato's arrival in Europe it was regarded as poison fit only for pigs. Yet, the author suggests, the potato's impact on world history became as striking as that of the railway or the car. The text draws on personal diaries, chronicles, newspaper editorials and government records to bring this story to life.