[Photograph: Simon & Schuster]

It's no surprise that food is an important commodity. The amount of attention paid to issues of food safety, security, and consumption in today's media makes it hard to resist thinking and talking about what's on our plates. But academic scholarship has traditionally not paid much attention to delving into the role food has played in the history and development of human civilization. But lucky for the food nerds among us, books like Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations are now on bookshelves across the country.

This book is not a quick or light read. The authors, professor Evan D.G. Fraser and journalist Andrew Rimas, have done serious historical research and analysis in composing this extensive narrative. Some of the chapters focus on specific climate and environmental factors that affect food production: water, ice, dirt. Others discuss the development of food trade relationships across centuries and empires.

Ostensibly the book follows the course of an explorer and trader named Francesco Carletti, whose travels brought him to many foreign lands and whose journals recount culinary experiences unique for the late 16th century. But his recurring appearance in the book's chapters seemed a bit irrelevant and confusing after so many pages, and didn't particularly add to the book's drama or intensity. Given that Empires reads so much like a historical text, the emphasis on one individuals' experiences was a bit jarring.

The book feels dry at times, and readers can easily get lost in all the dates and battles cited, but it's also chock full of entertaining anecdotes. My favorite is the story of a 1920 food shortage in a Jewish neighborhood in New York, which prompted Jewish mothers across the city to boycott certain goods from the stores. Eyewitness accounts told tales of the women using "their black shopping bags as clubs...onions, potatoes, and cabbages flew through the air." Now there's a mental image worth giggling at.

If you're interested in the growing field of food scholarship, this is an excellent book to start with. It covers centuries of history and discusses issues of modern-day food production. It rarely strays far from the empires and battles you studied in high school, but adds a completely new perspective through food trade analysis. Perhaps Eat, Pray, Love was your foodie beach read this summer—Empires is the antidote that will fill you with historical food facts to share with friends.

About the Author: A student in Providence, Rhode Island, Leah Douglas loves consuming and learning about as much food as possible. She blogs at Feasting on Providence.