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Harvey Levenstein

Paradox of Plenty

A Social History of Eating in Modern America

Revised Edition
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$22.95, £13.50 paperback
978-0-520-23440-6
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362 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 13 b/w photographs, 3 line illustrations
May 2003, Available worldwide
Categories: Food & Cooking; American Studies; United States History; History of Food

"Levenstein has done the hard thinking for the inner man and woman...and I trust that no one who writes like him need ever dine alone."—Christopher Hitchens, Times Literary Supplement

"This remarkable book, the sequel to the author's Revolution at the TableÉis a sophisticated analysis of the dynamics of cultural change that deserves a wide audience among economic historians, political historians, women's historians, medical historians, and social historians."—Canadian Journal of History

"Assuming the duty of telling Americans who they are through what they eat, Harvey Levenstein, in his latest chronicle of American food habits, reveals much about the United States and its inhabitantsÉ. Levenstein's insightful description and analysis, the book's wealth of alternately humorous and sobering anecdotes, and its impressive array of information about food in modern U.S. society make for a stimulating glimpse into American culture."—Reviews in American History
In this sweeping history of food and eating in modern America, Harvey Levenstein explores the social, economic, and political factors that have shaped the American diet since 1930.
Harvey Levenstein is Professor Emeritus of History at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Among his books are Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet (California, 2003), Seductive Journey: American Tourists in France from the Jefferson to the Jazz Age (1998), and Communism, Anticommunism and the CIO (1981).