From Label to Table

"This absorbingly interesting book shines a novel light on the development of nutritional labeling in the United States. Taking its inspiration from science and technology studies, it knowledgeably identifies shifting 'assemblages' of people-plus-things in an intriguing and detailed history."--Anne Murcott, University of London and University of Nottingham "From Label to Table is an archaeology of the food label, digging down through the sedimentary levels that the label's seemingly simple contents conceal. Tracing this story is a signal accomplishment, but there is more. Interwoven with the narrative is an analysis that maps the FDA's changing methods of food regulation onto the broader dynamics of twentieth-century American capitalism, especially the shift from the New Deal order to post-1980 neoliberal politics. The book adeptly moves between these levels, thereby inserting the emergence of informational food labeling as part of the transformations of late capitalism."--Roger Horowitz, author of Kosher USA: How Coke Became Kosher and Other Tales of Modern Food