WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW About This Series
Who it's for:
Busy people with diverse interests, ranging from college students to professionals, who wish to inform themselves in a succinct yet authoritative manner about a particular topic.
What's inside:
An incisive approach to a complex and timely issue, laid out in a straight-forward, question-and-answer format.
Meet Our Authors
Top experts in their given fields, ranging from an Economist correspondent to a director at the Council on Foreign Relations, you can trust our authors’ expertise and guidance.
Popular Topics in the "What Everyone Needs to Know" Series
- International Politics
- Environmental Policies
- World History
- Sciences & Math
- Religion & Spirituality
Review
"The author is an academic, not a journalist, and his efforts to get the food facts right ring through every page. Paarlberg challenges many of the ideas that are frequently voiced - but rarely questioned - in popular food discourse...Although many of his claims call into question sacrosanct principles in activist and academic circles, there are good reasons to hear Paarlberg out; he backs up his arguments with data, and writes based on decades of experience as a political scientist and policy analyst working in the field." --Nature Geoscience"Paarlberg's book is a timely contribution to the discussion about the politics of food, both domestically and internationally…. Although advocates of alternative farming methods are unlikely to agree with Food Politics, they should nevertheless read it. Paarlberg is a serious, knowledgeable scholar." --Journal of Politics
"[Paarlberg] is one of the most distinguished academics in the field of global food politics and is able to draw on a lifetime of research. Although the book is clearly underpinned by a considerable body of evidence, the writing style is engaging and easily digestible. It would serve as an excellent introduction to the topic for students." --International Studies Review
"Going well beyond its title, Food Politics addresses key questions about agriculture, including consumers' concerns about food safety, producers' concerns about price volatility, and taxpayers' concerns about subsidies. Paarlberg organizes his material around a long list of questions about food policies and practices...His answers to these and many other questions are accessible and nuanced." --Foreign Affairs
"A much needed corrective to a clanging bandwagon of culinary protest that asks well-off consumers to drop out, stay local and go green, while the rest of the world worries about its next bowl of rice." --The Texas Observer"The great strength of Food Politics is the breadth of topics covered. For an undergraduate class, this book will provide students exposure to the world of food production and provisioning and the underlying political and social ideas and research that shape food and our relationship to it….As the subtitle suggests, Paarlberg covers almost every topic that one should know about food. Additionally, Paarlberg uses simple but precise language to cover the vast array of food topics...The strengths of the book encouraged me to use it in a directed readings course." --The American Journal of Agricultural Economics About the Author
Robert Paarlberg is an associate at Harvard's Weatherhead Center and an associate in the Sustainability Science Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has been an adjunct professor of public policy at HKS and is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. A leading authority on food policy, his books include Resetting the Table, Starved for Science, Policy Reform in American Agriculture, and Fixing Farm Trade. Paarlberg has been a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Research Council of the National Academies, and the Board of Directors of Winrock International. He has worked in fifteen different countries in Africa as a consultant to the International Food Policy Research Institute, USAID, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Aspen Institute, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He also chaired the independent steering committee for a CGIAR research program, Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).
Rick Adamson is an Audie Award winner for his work on In a Heartbeat by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy (with Sally Jenkins) of The Blind Side fame. Also the winner of several ALA awards and a Harper Audio Grammy nominee, Rick has been narrating fiction and nonfiction as well as corporate and educational projects for twenty-five years. Originally from Maryland, he now lives in northern New Jersey, where he and his wife have raised three sons.
