Review: 'The most important thing in the world': Food and the Second World War
Evans, Bryce (2014) Review: 'The most important thing in the world': Food and the Second World War. Food History, 11 (2).
food and history review.docx
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""When I was a small boy at school" writes George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier, "a lecturer used to come once a term and deliver excellent lectures on famous battles of the past, such as Blenheim, Austerlitz, etc. He was fond of quoting Napoleon's maxim 'An army marches on its stomach', and at the end of his lecture he would suddenly turn to us and demand, 'What's the most important thing in the world?' We were expected to shout 'Food!' and if we did not do so he was disappointed." Orwell's recollection, published in 1937, was a prescient recital of age-old wisdom. Two years later, the Second World War broke out. In this conflict twenty million people would die of starvation and its effects ..."
Faculty of Arts & Humanities > History and Politics
Karen Quinn