Review: ‘The most important thing in the world’: Food and the Second World War

Evans, Bryce (2014) Review: ‘The most important thing in the world’: Food and the Second World War. Food History, 11 (2).

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Abstract

"“When I was a small boy at school” writes George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier, “a lecturer used to come once a term and deliver excellent lectures on famous battles of the past, such as Blenheim, Austerlitz, etc. He was fond of quoting Napoleon's maxim ‘An army marches on its stomach’, and at the end of his lecture he would suddenly turn to us and demand, ‘What's the most important thing in the world?’ We were expected to shout ‘Food!’ and if we did not do so he was disappointed.”

Orwell’s recollection, published in 1937, was a prescient recital of age-old wisdom. Two years later, the Second World War broke out. In this conflict twenty million people would die of starvation and its effects ..."

Item Type:	Article
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Creative Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities
Depositing User:	Karen Quinn
Date Deposited:	22 Mar 2016 15:02
Last Modified:	09 Dec 2024 14:44
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/723

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