An energetic and refreshing account of a little considered aspect of British history ... Collingham skillfully provides a full account of complex, even chaotic international connections ... It's hard to think of a more ingenious way of treating imperial history... The range is dazzling... The Hungry Empire, it should be clear, is supported by meticulous historical research... This book's treatment of food in the empire is innovative and exciting; to bring such vibrancy to an old topic is a remarkable achievement -- Kwasi Kwarteng * Guardian *
Joyously delicious...In her original and supremely captivating book, [Collingham] has cleverly recreated the fine details of some 20 meals, consumed for four and a half centuries in a variety of homes and ships and tented encampments far from the motherland...In British terms, she is Henry Mayhew and Mass-Observation rolled into one-a stellar observer of the day-to-day and the mundane, a social historian of extraordinary talent * New York Times Book Review *
One of the charms of this book is that Collingham includes recipes and menus from many periods and colonies ... This is a wholly pleasing book, which offers a tasty side dish to anyone exploring the narrative history of the British Empire ... it is droll to be reminded how many sought merely a square meal. -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *
Lizzie Collingham's fascinating new book, The Hungry Empire, demonstrates that a cup of tea is never just a cup of tea - it is a history of trade, exchange, land-grab, agricultural innovation and economic change... This is a marvellously wide-ranging and readable book, stuffed with engaging details and startling connections -- Lucy Lethbridge * Financial Times *
Revelatory ... The Hungry Empire is an original and thought-provoking book and for all the shocking accounts of the consequences of British appetites, a highly entertaining one. -- Daisy Goodwin * The Times *
The Hungry Empire is impressively scholarly... it is also fascinating. And although Collingham does not flinch from the cruelties and brutalities of empire, she refrains from the self-congratulatory finger-wagging indulged in by some modern historians -- Lewis Jones * Daily Telegraph *
Some of the most revelatory anecdotes are the funniest... As with all her work, Collingham has read most of what matters and has selected from it with a lively eye... She can unwind suggestive strands of evidence to lead readers through the labyrinth... Her brisk narrative of the origins of IPA is exemplary -- Felipe Fernandez-Armesto * Literary Review *
Fascinating... Collingham's decision to organize her enormously ambitious research around a series of intimate family meals is a good one. Material that would otherwise be numbingly abstract is made profoundly personal... You will certainly enjoy the journey -- Kathryn Hughes * Mail on Sunday *
[Lizzie Collingham is] one of the best, most readable practitioners of the dynamic field of food history. -- Maya Jasanoff * The Times Literary Supplement *
This ingeniously constructed history shows that what we think of as personal appetites have largely been constructed by the machinations of empire. The Hungry Empire uses vivid snapshots of meals to tell the story of how Britain's quest for food drove its imperial ambitions. Collingham takes the reader on a powerful journey ... Like Sidney Mintz or Margaret Visser, Collingham is a historian whose writing about food informs larger stories about human existence: about conflict and culture, about economics and politics. I was dazzled by Collingham's writing and her book also left me very hungry. -- Bee Wilson, author of FIRST BITE
