Food and American Wars

Food’s importance to warfare has long been a topic of historical inquiry. Dating back to Thucydides – and to even older stories of warfare – military histories have described how provisions have shaped conflicts. And yet, while histories of warfare from ancient times forward regularly describe the importance of food, accounts of modern warfare often ignore the ways that subsistence shapes conflicts. In twentieth-century warfare, far more attention has been paid to the ways new technologies influence warfare, while historians often ignore the older and more prosaic elements like supplying food. ¹ And yet, while food may no longer be as central to the story of warfare as it once was, there is a growing body of literature on the history of foods shaping American warfare.