Book Description
Renowned food scholar Carole Counihan serves up a delicious narrative about family and food in twentieth-century Florence. By looking at how family, and especially gender relations, have changed in Florence since the ending of World War II and continuing on to an examination of current food practices today, Around the Tuscan Table offers a portrait of the changing nature of modern life as exemplified through food. How food is produced, distributed, and consumed speaks volumes about a given culture, and this compelling and artfully narrated book aims to preserve, propagate, and interpret Florentines' world-renowned cuisine and culture.
At the market, in the kitchen, and around the table, Counihan gives readers a taste of everyday life in this region of Italy: how eating together unites the family; how the production of food is gendered; how food is a key tool of socialization, and how culture forms aesthetic tastes.
With more than 20 illustrations and age-old family recipes, this is a treat for the senses and the intellect.
Customer Reviews:
What's Happening to Food, Gender and Family in Italy.......2007-08-01
Around the Tuscan Table addresses one of the fundamental questions in the anthropology of food, as for example raised by Sidney Mintz in his work Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: how do food cultures change over time and come to incorporate completely novel foods while giving up other habits of centuries? It also addresses one of the fundamental questions in the sociology of food: how do traditional agrarian food systems come to be displaced by modern food provisioning systems that are less healthy and more ecologically destructive?
What is remarkable about this work is that it really illustrates the intimate relation between a regional economy and a regional culture of food, and how the two change together through a social history of agrarian change and the emergence of modern foodways. And the pivot on which this relation turns is the question of women's and men's roles in productive and reproductive labor, and the centrality of food to drawing gendered distinctions in work, status, and power. The book presents a very nuanced picture of how the different forms of work performed by men and women, and the different economic opportunities available to them, shape the patterns and styles of cooking, the temporalities of shopping and the timing of meals, and the overall foodways of an entire regional culture.
Prof. Counihan has a wonderful grasp of the subtleties of the reproduction of subordination. Rather than depicting a timeless culture of macho men and sacrificing women, she shows us exactly how both men and women together reproduce those patterns over time, much as Paul Willis showed in his Learning to Labor how working class kids get working class jobs. This might be subtitled, how Italian women get Italian husbands and sons, and end up cooking and cleaning for them. But she also shows us how the struggle to shift gendered positions produces shifts in food cultures, as women first are isolated in the private home in the process of transition from an agrarian to an urban economy, and then come to enter the waged workforce while still bearing the burden of domestic work. And in so doing the power of the woman as family cook, and the traditions of Tuscan food culture, are both eroded by new forms of shopping, cooking and eating. Women make certain gains, but they also lose a great deal.
We see modernization here as a real two-edged sword, bringing an abundance of food but taking away the time and the capacity to cook it and to savor it. We feel a real sense of loss for the old foodways, and even for the period of hunger and poverty that shaped the early to mid-twentieth century, as a time when food really was dreamed of and desired, special dishes were cooked only on special occasions, and food had a seasonality and stronger flavors linked to the land. The Slow Food movement has reinvented some of the attention to quality, flavor and locality that were simply taken for granted in the past.
Why we love Florence and Tuscany.......2004-11-16
Have you ever wandered through a Florentine neighborhood before lunch, smelling indescribably good scents wafting through open windows, hearing families talk to each other, and wondering what it is they are doing, and what they are eating? If you have, this book is for you. Around the Tuscan Table is an endlessly interesting and very readable saga of how modern Florentine families and Florentine food have changed in the last few decades, rendering the mysterious stone streets and people of Florence infinitely more real for the traveler and Italophile. And this ethnography also provides great recipes for simple, tasty Florentine food; the straccoto recipe has become a family favorite. Straccoto is Italian pot roast, with the sauce served over pasta as a first course. It is delicious.
This book is a marvelous antidote to the endless up-market mythologizing of Tuscany. It seems that we simply can't get away from `Tuscany as the promised land' - a place where rich Brits and Americans can buy a farmhouse and pretend, a la Marie Antoinette, to be earth-grimed farmers - of artisanal olive oils. Tuscany has become a kind of iconic play-land for the wealthy and bored cosmopolitan. But what of the Tuscan people? As a frequent traveler to Tuscany, I am thrilled that this book has been published. For too long the writing of all things Tuscan has been from the perspective of the expatriate - the émigré viewing a mythologized culture viewing the émigré, with the Tuscan landscape and people somehow magically preserved in a state of 19th century splendor, or squalor, depending on the purse of the observing expat and the state of the `villa' she or he has purchased. Dr. Counihan's book provides us with a welcome picture of how Florentines live and eat - as well as some of the best and simplest recipes for home cooked Tuscan meals available.
Rather than assuming an unchanging social and physical landscape, Dr. Counihan chronicles the changes in place, attitudes, habits, and social relations over decades among the family of her ex-husband. Her training is in anthropology, and she is a well-known and highly-respected scholar of food and identity, so it is inevitable that her book should focus on food as a metaphor for social change through time. However, this is no dry anthropological tome, it is readable, interesting, and highly informative. By relying on the many years that she lived in Italy, married to an Italian, she is able to give us a picture of Italian life not available to many Americans. She also teaches us about food change - how prosperity has altered Italian habits and attitudes, and how Italians feel about the many changes their country has undergone since World War II. We, as outsiders and traveling Americans, often view the Italian people as somehow unchanging, unmoving in culture and tradition. This book changes that perspective, allowing us to view the dynamism and modernity of Florentine families - and to have a much better understanding of why the streets of Florence smell so good at lunchtime... and why the mystique of Tuscan food and livelihoods is so compelling to Americans.
Book Description
This volume completes the History of the European Family series, a comprehensive synthesis of what is known about European families across the past five centuries. The profound political and social transformations that occurred from 1914-2000 were without precedent in human history, and their huge impact on European families is the focus of this third volume. It reveals how the changes and processes of the twentieth century altered private lives, the formation of families, the frequency and success of marriages, the relations between husbands, wives, sons, and daughters, and much more. The book raises fundamental questions about whether and to what extent family life in different European societies became more or less similar over the course of the century. Ten leading scholars from Europe and the United States present new essays in which they explore the influences of the economy, the state, the church, the world wars, and other demographic forces on the European family during a period when the nuclear family was threatened as never before.
Book Description
The twentieth-century history of Njombe, the Southern Highlands district of Tanzania, can aptly be summed up as exclusion within incorporation. Njombe was marginalized even as it was incorporated into the colonial economy. Njombe’s people came to see themselves as excluded from agricultural markets, access to medical services, schooling—in short, from all opportunity to escape the impoverishing trap of migrant labor.
Book Description
Sakaue Toshié was born on August 14, 1925, into a family of tenant farmers and day laborers in the hamlet of Kosugi. The world she entered was one of hard labor, poverty, dirt, disease, and frequent early death. By the 1970s, that rural world had changed almost beyond recognition. Toshié is the story of that extraordinary transformation as witnessed and experienced by Toshié herself. A sweeping social history of the Japanese countryside in its twentieth-century transition from "peasant" to "consumer" society, the book is also a richly textured account of the life of one village woman and her community caught up in the inexorable march of historical events.
Through the lens of Toshié's life, Simon Partner shows us the realities of rural Japanese life during the 1930s depression; daily existence under the wartime regime of "spiritual mobilization"; the land reform and its consequences during occupation; and the rapid emergence of a consumer culture against the background of agricultural mechanization during the 1950s and 1960s. In some ways representative and in other ways unique, Toshié's narrative raises questions about conventional frameworks of twentieth-century Japanese history, and about the place of individual agency and choice in an era often seen as dominated by the impersonal forces of modernity: technology, state power, and capitalism.
Customer Reviews:
A well-written history of rural life in 20th century Japan.......2004-07-08
In his book "Toshie", Simon Partner provides a detailed account of village life throughout 20th century Japan. The historical and sociological information is carefully selected; each piece deepens the reader's understanding of the life of Toshie and her fellow villagers. Partner's observations on World War II, village life, and the rise of consumer culture in Japan are all welcome additions to the study of Japanese history. The real strength of the book, however, is Partner's vivid descriptions. From the beginning, one feels as if they are looking over the shoulder of the midwife during the birth of the protagonist, Toshie. These fine descriptions continue throughout the book and one can nearly breathe the fresh village air or sweat alongside the farmers and laborers as they toil into the night.
For anyone who is interested in Japanese history, village life, or simply looking for a good read, I highly reccomend this book.
Best Book on Village Life in Japan.......2004-06-17
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. I am a third generation Japanese American(sansei) born and raised in Hawaii. My grandparents came here from Niigata ken, which is the setting of the book, around the turn of the 20th century. They came as laborers to work in the sugar plantations. Therefore I found the details about village life in Niigata very relevant to their experiences in America.
I have read many accouns of life in the Japanese countryside through the years ("Shinohata", "Village Japan", and "A Far Valley" come to mind). But Partner's book is the best I have read because of the combination of historical and sociological data. It is also filled with sensitivity to the lives of Toshie and others in her village.
I recently visited Niigata for the first time. Of course, spending two days there as a tourist did not give me as much of an in-depth look as I would have liked. But I will go back again, partly because Partner's work has increased my level of awareness.
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- 20th Century Teen Culture: my thoughts
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Twentieth-Century Teen Culture by the Decades: A Reference Guide
Lucy Rollin
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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ASIN: 0313302235 |
Book Description
Decade by decade, this resource offers an overview of all aspects of American teenagers' lives from 1900 to 1999, as they evolved through the century. Using a variety of sources from sociological studies to popular magazines, this work shows how teens have responded to the political events that have characterized each decade. It also describes the patterns that have affected their home, work, and school lives, patterns of dating and sex, trends in alcohol and drug use, and teen tastes in books and movies and use of slang and fashions. Seventy illustrations make the personalities, interests, and media of each decade come alive for students of history, literature, and popular culture. Twentieth-Century Teen Culture by the Decades chronicles the evolution of teenagers through the bobby-soxers of the 1940s, beatniks of the 1950s, and hippies of the 1960s, to the independent and outspoken teens of the 1990s. With photographs of teens, anecdotal information, and statistics, Rollin pulls together sources on fashion, slang, film, radio, and music. She confirms the great impact that rock music has had on teen life since the late 1940s as it traces the evolution of favorite performers and styles. She summarizes the patterns of youth freedoms and adult fears that resulted in such public efforts as the Senate hearings on juvenile delinquency in the 1950s and the attempts to label rock concerts as dangerous in the 1990s. She also demonstrates that the teen violence that seems to characterize the 1990s is not new. Twentieth-Century Teen Culture by the Decades is a must for answering the question of how teens lived during each decade and how each decade has influenced teens' lives today.
Customer Reviews:
20th Century Teen Culture: my thoughts.......2002-05-22
Don't expect any personal commentary from Lucy Rollin in 20th Century Teen Culture. Why? The book, as noted on the front cover, is "A Reference Guide." Although Rollin does a fantastic job documenting the sources of her information, the book lacks personal input. However, it does cover a unique and somewhat uncommon topic: teenagers. Arranged chronologically, the book documents statistics and facts relating to the life of the American teenager from 1900 to the 1990's. Each chapter, which usually covers a decade, includes topics such as teens at home, teens at school, teens at work, money, fashion, slang, leisure, entertainment, movies, music, dancing, dating, sex, drugs, violence, reading, radio, comic strips, magazines, and family dynamics. Lucy Rollin deserves high marks for her dilligent, precise documentation following each chapter. Her references are clearly and correctly documented, which would make the book very ideal for research. She also includes a chapter at the end of the book called "A Note on Sources," which highlights what she felt were her most valuble resources in writing the book. She also includes an appendix of web sites relating to teen culture. Overall, I feel that 20th Century Teen Culture was well-written for what it was, but could have been improved even further. For example, quotations from people or teens themselves would surely have elaborated upon the content. Also, more pictures of substantial size would contribute to the book's visual appeal. Despite being strictly informative, 20th Century Teen Culture is an eye-opening book with countless connections to other works and references, that can surely be appreciated by both teenagers and adults alike.
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- Twentieth-Century Sexuality: A History
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Twentieth-Century Sexuality: A History (Family, Sexuality, and Social Relations in Past Times)
Angus McLaren
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
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Binding: Paperback
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The History of Sexuality: An Introduction
ASIN: 0631208135 |
Book Description
This book provides a fascinating history of sexuality in twentieth-century Europe and North America. Angus McLaren draws upon legal, medical and literary sources to demonstrate how modern sexuality has been shaped by race, class, gender and generational preoccupations. He explores why the century was punctuated by sexual panics over a range of issues from abortion, contraception and marital disharmony to frigidity, homosexuality and AIDS.By scrutinizing the activities of sexologists, psychoanalysts, eugenicists, feminists and fascists - as well as the ordinary men and women they sought to influence - this book tracks the shifting meanings the western world has given to sexuality.
Customer Reviews:
Twentieth-Century Sexuality: A History.......2006-01-29
I found McLaren's main message that nearly all attempts at restricting recreational sex were in fact replaced by new modes of restraint. These restraints only appear to be more liberal in nature. McLaren's pace at which he presents his evidence is brisk but not excessive, and the examples that he gives from the primary sources from the past century will make you either laugh in disbelief or cringe at America and Europe's attempt to construct a "healthy" "normal" society.
Average customer rating:
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Beneath the Fault Line: The Popular and Legal Culture of Divorce in Twentieth-Century America
J. Herbie Difonzo
Manufacturer: University of Virginia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0813917077 |
Customer Reviews:
a new understanding of ethnic identity.......2000-04-19
This book addresses the problem of "race" and ethnic identity for bi-ethnic people. The author focuses on mixed race among Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans and Black Americans, as well as the phenomenon of intermarriage in the military. For each group, he takes an historical approach of traditional ideas about miscegenation in each group, and then follows through with examples of intermarriage in each group and the reactions on behalf of each group involved. The approach is a mix of history, sociology and ethnic studies. Although limited to only three groups among which racial mixing has occurred, each study is quite weighty and comprehensive.
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Kiss and Tell: Surveying Sex in the Twentieth Century
Julia A. Ericksen , and
Sally A. Steffen
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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ASIN: 0674505352 |
Amazon.com
"One in ten Americans is gay" has become a truism, a rallying point for pro- and antigay forces alike. But what does this "fact" mean? Where did it come from? How reliable is it as a descriptive statistic? Does it refer only to those who self-identify as gay, or to all people who have ever had a same-sex sexual encounter?
Julia Ericksen and Sally Steffen's Kiss and Tell is a fascinating history of sex surveys in the United Sates in the last hundred years. Sex surveys are a particularly colorful lens through which to examine the use of surveys as a social science tool. The prurience of survey consumers, the biases of researchers, and the eternal question mark of subjects' honesty are, arguably, especially heightened when the topic of the research is shrouded in such mystery, coyness, and taboo. Ericksen and Steffen discuss how changes in researchers' concerns and the refinement of their methods both reveal and construct notions of sexual normality. What is asked of whom reflects and frames the debates on sexuality in the United States, they emphasize, whether the focus be on the capacity of women to be sexual creatures, the dangers of "rampant" adolescent sexual activity, or sexual behaviors considered deviant by the majority. And when the federal government operates as a source of research funding in the field, the sexual politics become further politicized. Operating on a number of levels, Kiss and Tell is a sophisticated critical discussion of the development of social science methods--and a welcome addition to sexology literature. --Julia Riches
Book Description
Learning the details of others' sex lives is the most enticing of guilty pleasures. We measure our own practices against the "normalcy" that sex surveys seek to capture. Special interest groups use or attack survey findings (such as the claim that 10% of Americans are gay) for their own ends. Indeed, we all have some stake in these surveys, be it self-justification, recrimination, or curiosity--and this testifies to their significance in our culture.
Kiss and Tell chronicles the history of sex surveys in the United States over a century of changing social and sexual mores. Julia Ericksen and Sally Steffen reveal that the survey questions asked, more than the answers elicited, expose and shape the popular image of appropriate sexuality. We can learn as much about the history and practice of sexuality by looking at surveyors' changing concerns as we can by reading the results of their surveys. The authors show how surveys have reflected societal anxieties about adolescent development, teen sex and promiscuity, and AIDS, and have been employed in efforts to preserve marriage and to control women's sexuality.
Kiss and Tell is an important examination of the role of social science in shaping American sexual patterns. Revealing how surveys of sexual behavior help create the issues they purport merely to describe, it reminds us how malleable and imperfect our knowledge of sexual behavior is.
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Work, Family, And Faith: Rural Southern Women in the Twentieth Century
Manufacturer: University of Missouri Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0826216293 |
Books:
- Art Therapy: An Introduction (BASIC PRINCIPLES INTO PRACTICE)
- Baby's Box of Fun: A Karen Katz Lift-the-Flap Gift Set: Where Is Baby's Belly Button; Where Is Baby's Mommy?; Toes, Ears, & Nose
- Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays
- Bad Luck and Trouble
- Beginnings & Beyond: Foundations in Early Childhood Education
- Beyond the Blues: A Guide to Understanding and Treating Prenatal and Postpartum Depression
- Big Box of Boynton: Barnyard Dance! Pajama Time! Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!
- Boomsday
- Building N1(TM) Grid Solutions: Preparing, Architecting, and Implementing Service-Centric Data Centers (Sun BluePrints, The Official Sun Microsystems Resource Series)
- Business and Its Environment (5th Edition)
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