Overview

The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. Many foods we consume today--from almonds and apples to tea and rice--have histories that can be traced along the tracks of the Silk Road, out of prehistoric Central Asia to European kitchens and American tables. Organized trade along the Silk Road dates to at least Han Dynasty China in the second century B.C., but the exchange of goods, ideas, cultural practices, and genes along these ancient trading routes extends back five thousand years. Balancing a broad array of archaeological, botanical, and historical evidence, Fruit from the Sands presents the fascinating story of the origins and spread of agriculture across Inner Asia and into Europe and East Asia. Through the preserved remains of plants in archaeological sites, Robert N. Spengler III identifies the regions where our most familiar crops were domesticated and follows their routes as people carried them around the world. Vividly narrated, Fruit from the Sands explores how the foods we eat have shaped the course of human history and transformed consumption all over the globe.

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Eric Martin is an Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has narrated many dozens of audiobooks in fiction and nonfiction. He is also the host and producer of the award-winning This American Wife, a popular podcast, and now web series, that features original comedy and stories, as well as interviews with authors such as Robert Greene and Amy Tan. Robert N. Spengler III is the Archaeobotany Laboratory Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, a Volkswagen/Mellon Foundations Fellow, and a former Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Eric Jason Martin is a producer, director, and voice performer based in Los Angeles. He is the AudioFile Earphones and Audie Award-winning narrator of over 200 audiobooks, including works by Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Karin Slaughter, and Lee Child. Eric's recent productions include the Audible Original Stinker Lets Loose!, a New York Times Monthly Bestseller also starring Jon Hamm and Rhea Seehorn, and he is the director of Kate McKinnon and Emily Lynne's musical comedy series Heads Will Roll for Broadway Video and Audible.

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