The Course of History: Ten Meals That Changed the World by Struan Stevenson presents ten moments in history where a meal played some role in the result of that moment, thus "chang[ing] the world."

There does seem to be a couple ways readers are understanding what Stevenson is doing with this coupling of food and historical moments. Some appear to believe that Stevenson is saying these meals 'singlehandedly' changed history, that because of these meals actions were taken or agreements were made. I did not understand that to be his thesis. I understood something closer to these meals playing a role in these moments, whether enforcing pecking orders, creating camaraderie, causing hangovers, or whatever. As such, they played a role in what transpired but was not THE thing that changed history. How one understands Stevenson's thesis here will play a large part in one's enjoyment of the book. I lean toward the view I do from both the text itself and from the idea that a politician understand the many roles a meal can play when meetings and/or negotiations are being held (and I can't imagine even the most conservative of politicians thinking a meal will, in and of itself, make THE difference).

Having gotten that out of the way, there were two main areas of interest for me here. I like food, meals, recipes, and that sort of thing, so looking at the menus and the recipes was fun and interesting in its own right. The other was the approach taken with describing the historical events themselves. The contextualization of each meal read like most history, not a lot of license taken to embellish. The descriptions of the meals, though, and the possible thoughts of those there, reads more like fictionalized history (and I don't mean historical fiction, significantly different). Using whatever sources are available from each actual meal, Stevenson fills in the gaps to make the meals read as if we were there as compared to just outlining whatever facts might be known. This is not unusual even in academic history texts, some conjecture must be added to make history and actual narrative rather than a list. The difference here is one largely of degree and, a couple of times, of importance to the larger events. This is hardly an academic book so I was not bothered by the liberties Stevenson took. If this had been presented as a more accurate account, it might have been problematic in a chapter or two.

I would recommend this to readers who like to see what the periphery of larger events look like in history. Take the meals as a possible, even probable in a few cases, account of what happened. If you have no interest in the food aspect I think this might disappoint a little because you may be thinking of this as a 'serious' history book. If you're thinking of getting this as a gift for someone, as I am, think about whether the recipient enjoys history for their own pleasure, which will possibly mean they can read this type of book and accept the accounts of each meal as mostly accurate with some things filled in. If they enjoy history more because they like to tell people they like history, maybe another book would be better since they will likely use this as a way to show just how smart they are by complaining about little things that keep it from being, well, from being what it isn't even trying to be.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss. ( )