David Cantor, Christian Bonah and Matthias Dorres (eds). Meat, Medicine and Human Health in the Twentieth Century, London: Pickering & Chatto, 2010. Pp. xiii + 257. pound60.00. ISBN 978 1 84893 103 9.

摘要

Meat, Medicine and Human Health in the Twentieth Century is a fascinating collection of essays which contains contributions from some of America and Europe's leading social historians of medicine. The volume sets out to explore the multifaceted debates surrounding the healthiness of rising levels of meat consumption. Meat, the editors observe, became a staple article of the western diet during the late nineteenth century. Yet whether or not it came to act as a healthy component of civilised diet or, conversely, one which encouraged the onset of a new set of medical complaints has been heavily debated throughout the modern era. It is the diversity of the messages surrounding discussion of meat and health, and the manner by which consumers have been forced to decode contradictory messages which Cantor, Bonah and Dorres expertly focus upon. Meat emerges throughout the collection as an entity which is historically difficult to define. It has not only acted simply as a source of sustenance, but also as a therapeutic agent, a transmitter of disease, a central element of national identity, an object of scientific enquiry, an index of modernity and civilisation, and a source of social anxiety. The volume therefore sets out in part to determine how best to define meat, and how the meaninas ascribed to it shift accordina to differina historical contexts.