The author also clearly enumerates how developing nations have been repeatedly victimized by colonialism and have an indolent if rapacious ruling class (“unproductive landlords, undynamic capitalist class, vision-less and corrupt political leaders”). Without tobacco and cotton revenues, he writes, America would have never become an industrial marvel. Okra, for example, came from Africa on the Middle Passage, affording the author an opportunity to reflect on the contributions of enslaved Africans not just to the antebellum economy, but also to present-day wealth. Using foodstuffs as metaphors as much as things in and of themselves, Chang examines them in the light of economic history. “With increase in international trade, international migration and international travel,” writes Chang, “people everywhere have become more curious about and open to foreign foods.” So it is that Britain became a multiflavored nation even at a time when economics became monocultural. Yet even in the land of toad in the hole and bubble and squeak, global trends began to break through. Myth-busting, witty and thought-provoking, Edible Economics shows that getting to grips with the economy is like learning a recipe: if we understand it, we can change it - and, with it, the world.Economist Chang takes an offbeat approach to the dismal-but delicious-science.īorn in Korea, the author studied in England at a time when the food was inarguably awful. Explaining everything from the hidden cost of care work to the misleading language of the free market as he cooks dishes like anchovy and egg toast, Gambas al Ajillo and Korean dotori mook, Ha-Joon Chang serves up an easy-to-digest feast of bold ideas. For Chang, chocolate is a life-long addiction, but more exciting are the insights it offers into post-industrial knowledge economies and while okra makes Southern gumbo heart-meltingly smooth, it also speaks of capitalism's entangled relationship with freedom and unfreedom.

He uses histories behind familiar food items - where they come from, how they are cooked and consumed, what they mean to different cultures - to explore economic theory. In Edible Economics, Chang makes challenging economic ideas more palatable by plating them alongside stories about food from around the world. Just as eating a wide range of cuisines contributes to a more interesting and balanced diet, so too is it essential we listen to a variety of economic perspectives. But this is bland and unhealthy - like British food in the 1980s, when bestselling author and economist Ha-Joon Chang first arrived in the UK from South Korea. Economic thinking - about globalisation, climate change, immigration, austerity, automation and much more - in its most digestible formįor decades, a single free market philosophy has dominated global economics.

Edible Economics by Ha-Joon Chang