Editor: Justin Nordstrom

Abstract by: 30 March 2019

“War is probably the single most powerful instrument of dietary change in human experience.” (Sydney Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom)

„Battlefields and Homefronts: Historical Perspectives on Food and Warfare from 1500 to the Present“ is a forthcoming anthology to be published by the University of Arkansas Press as part of its Food and Foodways Series. This anthology will bring together historians writing across a diverse variety of sub-fields and international perspectives.  While intentionally broad in scope, the book’s unifying theme would be how soldiers, civilians, and communities used food (and its absence, deprivation and hunger,) as both a weapon of war and as a unifying force in establishing governmental control and cultural cohesion during times of conflict. 

Possible topics on food and warfare would include:

• Food and hunger on the battlefield, and the role of food in shaping military decisions and outcomes
• Food and mobilization, the intersection of civilian production and conservation on one hand and military exigency on the other
• Technologies in food production, transport, storage, and the militarization of food through industrialization
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