Wow! This was a very cool read. It opened my eyes to a new way of looking at food and I enjoyed seeing food through the lens of economics. Even though I don’t know much about economics, I found it interesting.

I was intrigued by the idea of learning more about economics through food. I wasn't sure how that was going to work, but in the end it didn't matter and there were tidbits here and there in the book that caught my attention and kept it. It's an interesting vehicle that the author uses here and it was more edible than I thought it might be.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Definitely an unusual read!

In Edible Economics the author focuses on dishes, ingredients and sometimes their histories with a nod to his particular likes or dislikes. That is by far the most interesting part of the book. He presents interesting facts that could easily been put into a book about fun food factoids. Then he goes off the food tangent to discuss some economic issue or concept. I preferred the food thoughts and was a bit lost in the economic concepts. No doubt that speaks to my prior knowledge before reading this book. It seemed the author melded two concepts but not always coming up with the best recipes for comprehension. Still, enjoyable on the food front. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this title. to focus on global economic issues.

Edible Economics by Ha-Joon Chang is a recently published book in which "A Hungry Economist Explains the World." The text immediately grabs readers' attention with some startling information about garlic consumption in South Korea: who knew that at 7.5 kilos per person, the average annual amount was more than 10 times greater than that of Italians? Chang, a Professor Economics at SOAS University of London, then veers off into a discussion of various economic factors that is somewhat technical and long-winded. It appears that a narrow audience, relatively well-versed in economic concepts, may enjoy this text, but I think the average reader will be wishing for more food stories and less theory. In fact, Kirkus notes, "It'll help to have Econ 101 under your belt to appreciate this book, but it makes for fine foodie entertainment."

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

In a rather unconventional manner, Edible Economics reviews a swath of economic theories and practices through the lens of foods — not through a given country or economy’s food culture or food economics, but simply through the lens of foods that relate to the economic thread.

This was a weird and wonderful little book! I honestly never thought I would enjoy a book on economics, but I found myself fascinated the whole way through. Ha-Joon Chang offers some unique perspectives on various economic theories, often presenting multiple differing opinions in the same chapter. He weaves together these theories and practices with tangible historical examples, all the while tying each one at least metaphorically to a food — such as the idea of chillies being representative of invisible labor or strawberries relating directly to the development of automation of the workforce.

While I did find some of Chang’s opinions to be distinctly British — though born and raised in South Korea, Ha-Joon Chang attended university and now teaches in the UK — it was still easy to remind myself that this is a book of opinions as much as it is a book of fact. It’s not a textbook, but rather a unique economic overview from one individual’s perspective. I do appreciate the author’s evident extended effort to present ideas and concepts fairly, particularly multiple discussions of different versions and perspectives of the same theories, but the overarching author’s voice and bias is still ever-present. Fortunately, Ha-Joon Chang’s final recommendation to the reader is to understand that every perspective is just that: a perspective. Economics, though presented as firmly rooted in hard data and science, is just as much a matter of opinion as most things in this world.

Edible Economics was honest, occasionally flawed and surface-level, but ultimately incredibly digestible and often delicious. I’m certainly not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel like I am leaving this book having learned far more than I expected to, particularly with a firm understanding of the society and world at large that I live in today, and certainly far more prepared to comprehend the ever-developing future stretched out before us.

To be honest this was a tough one to start, but if you have the chance, I absolutely recommend reading the Conclusion first. Once I read that (exciting overview), I couldn’t wait to dive in! While the text is quite academic, there’s a true sense of approachable curiosity that leads the reader through.

Each chapter is a quaint personal essay on a food (including a brief history with a sweet personal anecdote), that quickly forays into a treatise on an economic topic (ex. care markets, the need for countries to keep their manufacturing as the stock markets are divorced from certain countries’ economies, etc.). As a economist first & foremost, his words concerning his expertise tend to contain more passion & specificity. Nevertheless this a wonderful & memorable introduction & overview of the complex economic issues that afflict our global food ecosystem & economies today.

The chapters on Coca-Cola, Strawberries & Chocolate were particularly memorable.

Would make a great graduation gift for a high school or college kid.

An interesting take on economics using food as a metaphor for different types of economic theories. Each chapter tackles a specific food product, from acorns to prawns to Coca-Cola, and Chang correlates each of those food products with an economic idea that relates to the food's history, production, or impact. While the chapters do reference other chapters to build relationships, each chapter can also be read as it's own mini-essay. Overall, a fun and accessible book that provides a good overview for readers unfamiliar with global economics or who enjoy food from all around the world.

Since I by far prefer to read about food than economics, it was the title and the cover which encouraged me to pick up this book, rather than the author's credentials. As it turns out, it was a trap set out for exactly such a reader like me. But I am so glad that I let myself get caught.

“My food stories are a bit like the ice cream that some of your mums may have offered to ‘bribe’ you to eat your ‘greens’ – except that in this book ice cream comes first, the greens later (what a deal!)” - admits Ha-Joon Chang in the preface. But he is also right when he adds: “my economic stories are going to be rewards in themselves because I have made them tastier than the usual by making them more varied in kind and more complex in flavour”.

The food stories are not just a pretext for a dry lecture, they are fascinating and engaging in themselves - so much engaging that you won’t realize when they morph into the economic ones. The author has an uncanny ability to connect very different topics into one coherent tale - say, pasta and automobile industry, or anchovy, guano and fertilizers.

Very refreshing is not only his style, but also his Korean background - he offers an original, non-Western-centric point of view on food as well as on economics.

I am sure it will be a tasty treat for everyone interested not only in food or economics but in a good storytelling about how the modern world works.

Thanks to the publisher, PublicAffairs, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

If you have an interest in food, history, and/or economics this book may be for you! A fairly short read that explains economic concepts through tales of food. I learned a good deal from each chapter and the author manages to entwine complicated concepts with charming stories and various facts. There are a few awkward transitions and pacing issues but nothing severe enough to overcome the good.

I’ve received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this more than I did. Food, economics, international relations? You’re basically describing my college majors. Honestly, I may have enjoyed this more if I didn’t have as much of a background in economics. Which could be encouraging for some people, like it’s more accessible. But it just felt a little repetitive/not saying very much new to me.

The narrative structure is fairly weak. It feels more like going out to dinner with your cool professor and he’s telling you random fun facts and his thoughts on economic policy inspired by something on the menu. There were a few new things I learned, but it’s not exactly comprehensive/in-depth.

3.5 star

This book isn't about the economy of food production from planting to the market's shelf but about worldwide economics explained through food, a clever concept that makes economics accessible for the layperson.

Being one of the laypeople who thinks of economy only when deciding between a 0.9 kg can or a 300 g can of anchovies in olive oil on a given run to the supermarket, I appreciated how Mr Chang used commonly eaten and popular foodstuff across the world to explain economic theories, political-economic systems, processes, and even an economist's overview of world history from the recent past to the present. Taking the example of the humble anchovy, he tells us how the raw materials based economies were ruined by the surge of synthetic substitutes, as happened to guano, rubber, and dyes, on which economies such as Peru's, Brazil's and Guatemala's were dependent on to prosper, and how this can happen again (and why). That makes it so very understandable, put so simply, than the complex sociological and economical theories most of us would find labyrinthine at best and boring or dry at worst.

Using foodstuffs that go from meat (anchovy, beef, chicken, prawn) to veggies (carrot, okra), nuts (acorn) and fruit (banana, strawberry), to processed food (noodles) and finally drinks & desserts (Coca-Cola, chocolate), as conversation starters, each of the chapters dedicated to a given foodstuff will teach you something about economics. All the foods are organised thematically in five parts, which keeps them organised enough because sometimes the author tends to wander around a bit. Part One is about overcoming prejudice through using the author's own experience overcoming his aversion to food like okra (I can relate, hate that thing), and the next is about becoming more productive, then the third is about doing better globally; and the fourth and last sections are about living together and thinking of the future.

The titles of the sections might sound rather generic or dry, but the writing is anything but. Each chapter has a recipe as a header, not in full but as a list of ingredients that go into the recipe that showcases the food item used as an example to discuss the theme of the chapter. I'm not much of a recipe enthusiast, but sometimes I wanted to know the preparation part of the recipe mentioned. I guess it's left like that, just a list, so we can experiment if we want?

Anyway, you won't only learn about economics, you'll get plenty of neat historical facts you didn't know about, too. For example, did you know that beef extract, that cube you throw into your soup, was invented with the best of intentions (to bring the proteins of beef to poor people that couldn't buy meat as it was super expensive before the 1900s) by a German chemist? It ultimately didn't end up being the malnutrition problem-solver it was meant to be, sadly, but that goes to show that the now often demonised "processed food" was originally meant to address serious challenges to feed the population.

I enjoyed the conversational and anecdotal format, and the interlinking of stuff I knew with stuff I didn't. Being a history reader, I knew about events like those told in the Anchovy chapter, the Banana chapter, etc., and had a basic understanding of some economic phenomena such as industrialisation overtaking raw-materials based economies in terms of income and prosperity. It reminded me a bit of "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" in style and aims, though with a different focus as Standage's is history and Chang's is economy. I love this intermingling of foodie enthusiasm and academic erudition!

Of course, the author is not an historian and neither is he a sociologist, and his explanations are going to be simplified for the sake of readability, clarity, and brevity too, as this is a short book. So do bear in mind that the book is meant for the general public, the lay public, and not for specialists in economy or history, and that a lot of the things asserted here are the author's opinions and experiences, and tastes in food, which are always personal. I had my favourite chapters, and plenty of moments exclaiming "I never knew that!" But I also could tell when information was incomplete, or simply not true. The chapter on Coca-Cola, for one, showed me the author (or his research team) aren't all that versed in Latin American politics, so the commentary there was grating to me. There's one footnote in which he says "installed by the coup d'état" about the former president of Bolivia, which isn't true, and tells me more what the author/his research team were reading to have given such an overview of the entire continent in the manner he did. I'm very used to Europeans and Europe-based gurus (the author is South Korean, but he's made his career in the UK, so I'm counting him in) being awful at analysing South America, save the Spaniards and Portuguese because language and historical ties that continue make them closer and more in touch, but it never ceases to bother me how ill-informed their commentary can be sometimes. There's enough omitted and oversimplied in that chapter that it was bothersome.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, if you're an adventurous eater like me, who also likes micro-history books and the mixing of topics in an amenable way. This book reminded me why Southeast Asian cuisine is the one ethnic food group I most want to try, and reassured me in my obstinately experimental tastes. There's no ethnic food I won't try, to the point those that know me ask me half-teasingly and half-seriously, "Just what don't you like?" Well, perhaps okra, but now that Mr Chang mentioned gumbo was what convinced his palate to welcome okra, I'm going to try it one day.

This book was sort of all over the place....like a foodie with ADD wanted to impart wisdom of the world, but maybe had one too many drinks in the process. There wasn't much 'economic' teaching for folks who don't already have a solid background either.

Wow. Really impressed.

I was worried that this book would be similar to the Jungle and I'd be considering being a vegan after reading this book. But alas, Edible Economics didn't go in that direction. I've been in a bit of a rut with my reading and this non-fiction book caught my attention (extra kudos regarding the cover design) .

The author acknowledges (in the conclusion) that this is a bit of a strange book. For example the "Strawberry" chapter evolves into the impact of automation on jobs. The author is from South Korea and there is a lot of Asian influence in the food discussion and background, but it adds to the depth of the book. Each chapter is a bit of a stand alone essay of a food item and then the discussion morphs into something economic. I never would have guessed that I would have loved reading about economics. Well written and interesting!

Once again, many thanks to NetGalley for introducing me to an author that is new to me!

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review Edible Economics in exchange for an honest review. Great job to author Ha-Joon Chang and publisher PublicAffairs, publication Date is 17 Jan 2023.