Milk: A Local and Global History
Deborah Valenze
Milk: A Local and Global History
How did an animal product that spoils easily, carries disease, and causes digestive trouble for many of its consumers become a near-universal symbol of modern nutrition? In the first cultural history of milk, historian Deborah Valenze traces the rituals and beliefs that have governed milk production and consumption since its use in the earliest societies. Covering the long span of human history, Milk reveals how developments in technology, public health, and nutritional science made this once-rare elixir a modern-day staple.
3.3 out of 5 based on 3 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Food & Drink |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
351 |
| RRP |
£17.99 |
| Date of Publication |
June 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-0300117240 |
| Publisher |
Yale University Press |
| |
How did an animal product that spoils easily, carries disease, and causes digestive trouble for many of its consumers become a near-universal symbol of modern nutrition? In the first cultural history of milk, historian Deborah Valenze traces the rituals and beliefs that have governed milk production and consumption since its use in the earliest societies. Covering the long span of human history, Milk reveals how developments in technology, public health, and nutritional science made this once-rare elixir a modern-day staple.
Reviews
The Observer
Alex Renton
"Fascinating … The only disappointment in Valenze's book is that after telling of 5,000 years of ups and downs in the fortunes of milk, she doesn't venture far into milk's current decline."
30/07/2011
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The Sunday Times
Nick Rennison
"Stimulating … Valenze’s examples in her final chapters are perhaps drawn too extensively from American sources to appeal greatly to a British readership, but this doesn’t reduce the interest of her book. She does much to fulfil the initially surprising promise in her introduction that the history of milk is a “story full of mystery, myth and impassioned debate”."
31/07/2011
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The Sunday Telegraph
Louise Gray
"This book is detailed and engaging, with plenty of eccentric characters, from female Renaissance scholars supping with the peasants to military men fighting over condensed milk for their coffee. However, perhaps the most interesting part — what we think of milk now — is skimmed over: the impact of increased dairy production in developing countries, for example, or concerns over the use of bovine growth hormones."
17/07/2011
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