The taste of war : World War II and the battle for food
World War Two and the battle for food
/ Lizzie Collingham.
- 1st American ed.
- New York : Penguin Press , 2012.
- xv, 634 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references ( p. 581-620) and index.
War and food -- Food, an engine of war -- Germany's quest for empire -- From wheat to meat -- Defeat, hunger and the legacy of the First World War -- Autarky and Lebensraum -- Herbert Backe and the hunger plan -- Genocide in the East -- Japan's quest for empire -- A radical answer to rural crisis -- One million households in Manchuria -- From Nanjing to Pearl Harbor -- Contents -- The battle for food -- American boom -- Feeding Britain -- From meat to bread and potatoes -- American dried egg and Argentinian corned beef -- The battle of the Atlantic -- The worst winter of the war -- The American lifeline -- Frozen meat versus men and arms victory in the Atlantic -- Mobilizing the British Empire -- The Middle East supply centre -- Profiteering in East Africa -- West Africa and the dollar deficit -- The Bengal famine -- Feeding Germany -- The battle for production -- The occupation of western Europe -- Greek famine and Belgian resilience -- Allies and aryans -- Germany exports hunger to the east -- Living off the land -- Implementing the hunger plan -- The food crisis of 1941-42 -- The holocaust in Poland -- Food confiscation in the Ukraine -- Soviet collapse -- Contents -- Japan's journey towards starvation -- Rice and sweet potatoes -- Chaos and hunger in the empire -- China divided -- Nationalist collapse -- Communist survival -- The politics of food -- Japan -- starving for the Emperor -- Healthy eating as a patriotic virtue -- Churchill's rations -- The American blockade -- Guadalcanal -- New Guinea -- Burma -- Hunger on the home islands -- Surrender -- The Soviet Union -- Fighting on empty -- Feeding the Red Army -- Feeding the cities -- The american lifeline -- Perseverance despite hunger -- Germany and Britain -- two approaches to entitlement -- 1930s Britain -- a nutritional divide -- 1930s Germany -- the campaign for nutritional freedom -- The politics of rationing -- Feeding the British working classes -- Feeding the German war machine -- The black market -- The German cities -- hungry but not starving -- Contents -- The British Empire -- war as welfare -- Dr. Carrot -- guarding the British nation's health -- Closing the nutritional gap -- Health and morale -- the Army Catering Corps -- Fighting on bully beef and biscuits -- Porridge, peas and vitamins -- Nutritional reconditioning -- The Indian Army -- The United States -- out of depression and into abundance -- The "good war" -- Future hopes -- Troop welfare -- Australia -- food processing for victory -- Feeding Pacific Islanders -- The aftermath -- A hungry world -- A world of plenty -- American plenty versus European relief -- A vision for the future -- The shape of the post-war food world -- The rise of the new consumer -- A selective chronology of the Second World War.
Neither a work of revisionism nor an example of a too-focused academic specialty, this is that rarest of works: one that is scholarly, entertaining, and actually provides new insight into World War II. U.K. historian Collingham (Imperial Bodies: The Physical Experience of the Raj) shows how the food policies of Germany, Japan, the British Empire, and the United States were developed from experiences in World War I or during industrialization and how those policies impacted the way these nations fought World War II. From autarky (i.e., self-sufficiency) to over-reliance on global food markets, the combatant countries all had different policies for feeding their populations, both those in the armed forces and those on the home front. The impact of these policies would lead directly and indirectly to the deaths of 20 million people, a number equal to the combat deaths in this war. In this era, in which little arable land is likely to open up, Collingham's work is relevant for the future as well for historical study.
9781594203299
2011043783
World War, 1939-1945 Food supply Food security----History Nutricion Food habits---History---Europe War and society---Europe