Book reviews -- Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America by Harvey Levenstein

Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America. By Harvey Levenstein. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xii, 337 pp. $27.50, ISBN 0-19-505543-8.)

In Paradox of Plenty, Harvey Levenstein continues the story of American eating habits he began in Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet (1988). The new volume covers the years from 1930 to the early 1990s, chronicling the changes in social conditions, government policy, food processing, and marketing that influenced what and under what circumstances Americans ate, and how they felt about it. Describing the transition from a culture concerned with eating enough of the right things to one obsessed with avoiding the wrong ones, Levenstein summarizes the most important changes in America's food habits and suggests areas...