PLEASE NOTE this is a 2013 reading list—the precise content may change in future years.
Term 1, Week 1
Introduction: what is the global food system?
Questions

Does it make sense to speak of a single, unified global food system?

Why are international food markets so volatile?

Is national self-sufficiency in food a dangerous preoccupation?
Recommended reading

McMichael, P. (2009) ‘A Food Regime Genealogy’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(1): 139-70
Supplementary reading

Bello, W. (2009) The Food Wars (London: Verso).

Bonnano, A., et al. (1994) From Columbus to Conagra: The Globalisation of Agriculture and
Food (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press)

Busch, L. (2010) ‘Can Fairy Tales Come True? The Surprising Story of Neoliberalism and
World Agriculture’, Sociologia Ruralis, 50(4): 331-351

Collier, P. (2008) ‘Politics of Hunger: How Illusion and Greed Fan the Food Crisis’, Foreign
Affairs, 87: 67-79

Dixon, J. (2009) ‘From the Imperial to the Empty Calorie: How Nutrition Relations Underpin
Food Regime Transitions’, Agriculture and Human Values, 26(4)

Fold, N. and Pritchard, B. (2005) Cross-Continental Food Chains (London: Routledge)

Lang, T. (2010) ‘Crisis? What Crisis? The Normality of the Current Food Crisis’, Journal of
Agrarian Change, 10(1)

Magdoff, F., and Tokar, B. eds. (2010) Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and
Renewal (New York: Monthly Review Press)

McMichael, P. (2009) ‘The World Food Crisis in Historical Perspective’, Monthly Review,
61(3)

Paarlberg, R (2000) ‘The Weak Link between World Food Markets and World Food Security’,
Food Policy, 25(3): 317-335

Roberts, P. (2008) The End of Food: The Coming Crisis in the World Food Industry (London:
Bloomsbury)

Vanhaute, E. (2011) ‘From Famine to Food Crisis: What History Can Teach Us about Local and
Global Subsistence Crises’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(1): 47–65