Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent
John Reader
 <span><p><b>The
 long journey of the potato, from Incan gardens in the Andes thousands 
of years ago to a NASA manned rocket destined for Mars in the 
twenty-first century</b><br><br> The potato—humble, lumpy, bland, 
familiar—is a decidedly unglamorous staple of the dinner table. Or is 
it? John Reader’s narrative on the role of the potato in world history 
suggests we may be underestimating this remarkable tuber. From 
domestication in Peru 8,000 years ago to its status today as the world’s
 fourth largest food crop, the potato has played a starring—or at least 
supporting—role in many chapters of human history. In this witty and 
engaging book, Reader opens our eyes to the power of the potato.</p><p>Whether
 embraced as the solution to hunger or wielded as a weapon of 
exploitation, blamed for famine and death or recognized for spurring 
progress, the potato has often changed the course of human events. 
Reader focuses on sixteenth-century South America, where the indigenous 
potato enabled Spanish conquerors to feed thousands of conscripted 
native people; eighteenth-century Europe, where the nutrition-packed 
potato brought about a population explosion; and today’s global world, 
where the potato is an essential food source but also the world’s most 
chemically-dependent crop. Where potatoes have been adopted as a staple 
food, social change has always followed. It may be “just” a humble 
vegetable, John Reader shows, yet the history of the potato has been 
anything but dull.</p></span>  </br></br>