Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book traces the influence of food in the global transition to modernity. It sets the stage by describing premodern culinary systems within the Eurasian heartland. The book also considers the global realignment of food production resulting from European expansion. It seeks a more holistic perspective on cuisine by comparing two European societies, Britain and France, with a non-Western society undergoing many of the same changes, Japan. The book presents a comparative view of the role of the state in mediating eighteenth-century social stress arising from population growth and agricultural innovation. It examines the industrialization of provisioning systems and the rise of nationalism, which transformed politics in an equally dramatic fashion in Europe and the Americas. The book also examines the new politics of food, one focusing on Western Europe and the other on developing nations.