Overview

Over the last century, the industrialization of agriculture and processing technologies have made food abundant and relatively inexpensive for much of the world’s population. Simultaneously, pesticides, nitrates, and other technological innovations intended to improve the food supply’s productivity and safety have generated new, often poorly understood risks for consumers and the environment. From the proliferation of synthetic additives to the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the chapters in Risk on the Table zero in on key historical cases in North America and Europe that illuminate the history of food safety, highlighting the powerful tensions that exists among scientific understandings of risk, policymakers’ decisions, and cultural notions of “pure” food.

Full Product Details

Author:   Angela N. H. Creager ,  Jean-Paul Gaudillière
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781805397366

ISBN 10:   1805397362
Pages:   366
Publication Date:   01 November 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction Angela N. H. Creager & Jean-Paul Gaudillière Part I: Objectifying Dangers Chapter 1. Salad Days: The Science and Medicine of Bad Greens, 1870–2000 
Anne Hardy
 Chapter 2. Radioactive Diet: Food, Metabolism, and the Environment, c. 1960 Soraya de Chadarevian
 Chapter 3. Poison and Cancer: The Politics of Food Carcinogens in 1950s West Germany
 Heiko Stoff Chapter 4. “EAT. DIE.” The Domestication of Carcinogens in the 1980s
 Angela N. H. Creager Chapter 5. Risk on the Negotiating Table: Malnutrition, Mold Toxicity, and Postcolonial Development
 Lucas M. Mueller Chapter 6. Contaminated Foods, Global Environmental Health, and the Political Recalcitrance of a Pollution Problem: The Case of PCBs from 1966 to the Present Day 
Aurélien Féron Part II: Ordering Risks Chapter 7. Trace Amounts at Industrial Scale: Arsenicals and Medicated Feed in the Production of the “Western Diet” Hannah Landecker Chapter 8. Between Bacteriology and Toxicology: Agricultural Antibiotics and US Risk Regulation (1948–77)
 Claas Kirchhelle Chapter 9. Conflicts of Interest, Ignorance, and Hegemony in the Diethylstilboestral US Food Crisis
 Jean-Paul Gaudillière Chapter 10. Defining Food Additives: Origins and Shortfalls of the US Regulatory Framework
 Maricel V. Maffini and Sarah Vogel Chapter 11. The Rise (and Fall) of the Food-Drug Line: Classification, Gatekeepers, and Spatial Mediation in Regulating US Food and Health Markets Xaq Frohlich Afterword
 Deborah Fitzgerald Index

Reviews

“The editors have brought together enough international work to form a broad picture of changes in the global food system. This is an extremely welcome view of how those changes were received in different places at different times.” • Technology and Culture “This collection draws insightful genealogies of a persistently virulent problem: food safety. The book brings together a series of well-written and exciting historical cases that together create a picture of the scientific and political struggles for food safety and their obstacles.” • Alexander von Schwerin, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science “‘Risk on the Table’ is a perfectly apt title for a book which deals with a major concern of modern societies: What shall we eat? Combining perspectives of ‘food risk’ as a matter of health concerns; environmental issues; and economic, social and employment problems, this book is truly innovative.” • Karin Zachmann, The Technical University of Munich

“The book stands out for its multidisciplinary approach, integrating history, science, and policy analysis to explore the historical context and ongoing debates and challenges in food safety, including conflicting interests shaping policies and practices. The volume is particularly relevant in an era where food safety and environmental health are increasingly intertwined with global trade and industrial practices.” • Agriculture and Human Values “The editors have brought together enough international work to form a broad picture of changes in the global food system. This is an extremely welcome view of how those changes were received in different places at different times.” • Technology and Culture “This collection draws insightful genealogies of a persistently virulent problem: food safety. The book brings together a series of well-written and exciting historical cases that together create a picture of the scientific and political struggles for food safety and their obstacles.” • Alexander von Schwerin, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science “‘Risk on the Table’ is a perfectly apt title for a book which deals with a major concern of modern societies: What shall we eat? Combining perspectives of ‘food risk’ as a matter of health concerns; environmental issues; and economic, social and employment problems, this book is truly innovative.” • Karin Zachmann, The Technical University of Munich

Author Information

Angela N. H. Creager is the Thomas M. Siebel Professor in the History of Science at Princeton University, where she directed the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies from 2016–20. Her current work focuses on the role of genetic tests in environmental science and regulation during the late twentieth century.

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