Potatoes

Potatoes are is the world’s number one non-grain food commodity, and a major source of food to people in many parts of the world. This is quite an achievement for a plant that 500 years ago was totally unknown to most of humanity. My work on the potato’s global history stresses the contributions made by peasants and small farmers to disseminating this important food, and also traces out the surprising connections between capitalism, the Enlightenment, and our individual eating habits.

The Potato Project led to two books: Feeding the People: the Politics of the Potato is a global history of the potato’s remarkable journey from the Andes to everywhere. A shorter essay called, simply, Potato offers a more poetic meditation on people, potatoes and the pursuit of happiness. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, ‘each section educates, brings a smile, makes you hungry, and makes you think’. ‘I’ll never look at a potato the same way again’, said the food writer Ruby Tandoh.

Guaman Poma de Ayala, ‘June: Time of Digging up the Potatoes’, ‘El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno’, 1615-16, The Royal Danish Library,

Books

Feeding the People (2020)

Potato (2019)

Full Publication List

Year	Category	Publication Type	Title	Publisher	Link
2022	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	"How the humble potato has travelled the world and shaped history"	SCAS Talks Podcast	Link
2022	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	"Feeding the People"	Hungry Books Podcast	Link
2021	Scholarship	Book Chapter	'Potato' in Objects of New World Knowledge: A Cabinet of Curiosities	University of London Press	Link
2021	Scholarship	Article	Potatoes, Population and States	Early American Studies 19:2	Link
2021	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	Feeding the People: Interview with Daniela Gutierrez Flores	New Books Network	Link
2020	Scholarship	Book	Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato	Cambridge University Press	Link
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	Potato Politics with Rebecca Earle, interview with Malcolm Jolley	Good Food Revolution	Link
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	Interview with Ann & Peter Haigh	On The Menu	Link
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	'How Potatoes Changed the World’: Interview with Laura Mahler	Earth Ideas	Link
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	'This Spud’s for You’: Interview with Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley	Gastropod	Link
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	Book Q&A with Deborah Kalb	Deborah Kalb Books	Link
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	How Did Potatoes Become Political in Wartime?	History Hit
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	How the Humble Potato Conquered the World	Constant Wonder, BYU Radio	Link
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	‘The Politics of the Potato': Interview with Dan Snow	History Hit	Link
2020	Journalism and Interviews	Article	How Potatoes Conquered the World	BBC History Magazine
2019	Scholarship	Journal Article	Potatoes and the Pursuit of Happiness	Gastronomica 19:1	Link
2019	Scholarship	Book	Potato (Object Lessons)	Bloomsbury Academic	Link
2018	Scholarship	Journal Article	Potatoes and the Hispanic Enlightenment	The Americas 75:4	Link
2018	Scholarship	Journal Article	Promoting Potatoes in Eighteenth-Century Europe	Eighteenth-Century Studies 51:2	Link
2017	Scholarship	Journal Article	Food, Colonialism and the Quantum of Happiness	History Workshop Journal 84	Link
2017	Journalism and Interviews	Article	How the Humble Potato Fuelled the Rise of Liberal Capitalism	The Conversation	Link
2017	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	One Potato More on The Food Chain	BBC World Service	Link
2017	Journalism and Interviews	Interview	Poor Old Potato on The Food Chain	BBC World Service	Link
2016	Journalism and Interviews	Article	Giving Thanks for the Sweet Potato	Sunday Telegraph
2016	Journalism and Interviews	Article	Making an Eighteenth-Century Potato Pudding	John Carter Brown Library Blogs	Link
2016	Journalism and Interviews	Journal Article	Boil 'Em, Mash 'Em, Stick ‘em in a Pudding	John Carter Brown Library Blogs	Link
2016	Journalism and Interviews	Article	Sweet Potatoes, Donald Trump—and the Special Relationship	The Conversation	Link