Seed to Civilization: The Story of Food

by Charles B. Heiser Jr.

Seed to The Story of Food

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, History

228 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1981

About the author

Charles Bixler Heiser Jr.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

That this book was published in 1981 makes it all the more fascinating. In a nutshell, this is a very readable (and mercifully brief) anthropological look at our most important staples: wheat, rice, corn, cattle, sheep, pigs, etc. The grass family alone stands out: corn, rice, wheat, barley, oats, sugar, bamboo (okay, not eaten except the shoot, but still immensely important). You get their origins, dispersal history, and current uses around the world as of 1981. I'm sure many of the gaps in Heiser's storytelling have been filled in somewhat, for instance I know that we use different dates of domestication for several of the livestock species. However, what is striking is the lack of advancement towards alleviating hunger in the world. Heiser actually predicts quite accurately that little will change by 2000 because the problems affecting distribution and less importantly production of food resources are unlikely to change much in 30 years. Only now we have many more people on the planet affected by food scarcity (about 1,000,000,000 people, that's a lot of 0's) according to Paul Roberts, with an embarrassing symmetry of 1,000,000,000 people suffering from health problems related to getting too many calories. In any case, reading this book made me want to learn more about the Green Revolution and its key players, holes in the archaeological record that have been filled in somewhat since publication, and more about "hunger" in general. Any book that leaves you wanting more, in depth knowledge is probably a success. Or maybe not thorough enough. I don't know.

[Emerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously somewhat out of date by now, but a very good introduction into ethnobiology nonetheless.