Food, Society, and Environment

About the Book

Food, Society, and Environment is about food in the contexts of human social life, the biophysical environment, and ethical issues. As a book written for non-specialists, but in an informal style with a scholarly base, it explores several broadly important themes related to understanding food issues and problems today. They include (1) the importance of food in human health, and in shaping history and social change, (2) the industrialization and "commodification" of food that produces inequality and a global "world food order," (3) the two current forms of malnutrition, conventional hunger from want, and the newer malnutrition from overeating, (4) the impact of modern agrifood systems and foodways on biophysical resources such as soil and water, and (5) some ethical issues that surround our attempts to deal with food problems, particularly those related to trade and aid.

To examine these themes it is organized into six chapters:
1. Appetizers and a menu,
2. Food and History,
3. Industrialization of Food: Commodification and the Emerging World Food Order,
4. Foodways: Eating and Cuisines,
5. Population, Food, and Environment, and
6. Food Ethics, and Society Justice.

It contains figures and photos to engage readers, and each chapter is followed by suggestions for further reading and questions for reflection.

About the Author

Charles L. Harper was born in Missouri and spent most of his early adulthood in Kansas City Missouri. He has an undergraduate degree in Education emphasizing natural sciences from Central Missouri State University, a Masters and Doctorate degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, respectively. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where he teaches and writes about social change, theory, and environmental issues as a member of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Creighton University. He is the author of Social Change: America and the World, 5th Edition, (2007), and Environment and Society: Human Perspectives on Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition, (2006) both published by Pearson/Prentice Hall. He and his wife live in mid town Omaha close to a large clan of adult children and grandchildren, and recreationally he enjoys bicycling, cooking, and reading.