- History, Food, Food History, History of Technology, History of Science, World History, and 35 moreHistory of Philosophy of Science, Food Markets, Cultural Heritage, The Neolithic Revolution, Early Modern History, History of Ideas, Science and Religion, Culinary History, Mexico History, History of Geology, Philosophy of Science, Intellectual History, Philosophy of Technology, History of Science and Technology, Food Politics, Economic History, Anthropology of Food, Obesity, Cannibalism, Moriscos, Cereals, Gramineae, History of Everyday Life, Herbs & Spices, Historical Cookery, Foodways, History of Cooking and Food Culture, Medieval Cooking, Cooking and Food Preparation (archaeology), Sociology of Food and Eating, Gastronomy, History of Agriculture, Social aspects of food production and ecological farming systems, Agricultural History, and Environmental Historyedit
- I received a Ph. D. in History and Philosophy of Science from University College London in 1974. Following that I ta... moreI received a Ph. D. in History and Philosophy of Science from University College London in 1974. Following that I taught at Carnegie-Mellon, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech and the University of Hawaii, with visiting stints at the University of Melbourne, the Davis Center, Princeton, MIT, and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. In 1996, I left academia, moved to Mexico, and changed my research to history and politics of food. In 2012, I moved to Austin, Texas where I was a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2018, I have lived in Lexington, Kentucky.edit
"Rachel Laudan tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of the world’s great cuisines—from the mastery of grain cooking some twenty thousand years ago, to the present—in this superbly researched book. Probing beneath the apparent... more
"Rachel Laudan tells the remarkable story of the rise and fall of the world’s great cuisines—from the mastery of grain cooking some twenty thousand years ago, to the present—in this superbly researched book. Probing beneath the apparent confusion of dozens of cuisines to reveal the underlying simplicity of the culinary family tree, she shows how periodic seismic shifts in “culinary philosophy”—beliefs about health, the economy, politics, society and the gods—prompted the construction of new cuisines, a handful of which, chosen as the cuisines of empires, came to dominate the globe.
Cuisine and Empire shows how merchants, missionaries, and the military took cuisines over mountains, oceans, deserts, and across political frontiers. Laudan’s innovative narrative treats cuisine, like language, clothing, or architecture, as something constructed by humans. By emphasizing how cooking turns farm products into food and by taking the globe rather than the nation as the stage, she challenges the agrarian, romantic, and nationalistic myths that underlie the contemporary food movement."
Cuisine and Empire shows how merchants, missionaries, and the military took cuisines over mountains, oceans, deserts, and across political frontiers. Laudan’s innovative narrative treats cuisine, like language, clothing, or architecture, as something constructed by humans. By emphasizing how cooking turns farm products into food and by taking the globe rather than the nation as the stage, she challenges the agrarian, romantic, and nationalistic myths that underlie the contemporary food movement."
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How Hawaii was a natural laboratory for culinary change as the cuisines of three diasporas--the South Pacific, the Anglo, and the East Asian--were used to create Local Food.
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The preeminence of science in Western culture is manifest. Any student of modern society must acknowledge the importance of understanding how science conducts its business of inventing, testing, and finally accepting or rejecting... more
The preeminence of science in Western culture is manifest. Any student of modern society must acknowledge the importance of understanding how science conducts its business of inventing, testing, and finally accepting or rejecting theories. A culture which takes pride in its capacity for critical self-examination ought to place systematic study of the processes of theory change and theory invention in science high on its intellectual agenda. Whether for the practical purpose of managing the direction and progress of science, or the intellectual ...
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In 1956, Mary Sia published her second cookbook with the University of Hawaii Press. Her first, Chinese Chopsticks, had been published in English in Beijing in 1935. Born to professional Chinese parents in Honolulu, Mary Sia married Dr... more
In 1956, Mary Sia published her second cookbook with the University of Hawaii Press. Her first, Chinese Chopsticks, had been published in English in Beijing in 1935. Born to professional Chinese parents in Honolulu, Mary Sia married Dr Richard Sia and travelled with him to Beijing where she taught Chinese cooking and led tours of restaurants. When the Japanese invaded they returned to Hawaii. An introduction to this cross-cultural life and the use of cooking to negotiate boundaries.
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When I arrived in Hawaii in the mid 1980s, the home-grown model of culinary evolution was widely, if tacitly, accepted. It assumes that cuisines develop in place, evolving from simple peasant cooking of local ingredients to refined high... more
When I arrived in Hawaii in the mid 1980s, the home-grown model of culinary evolution was widely, if tacitly, accepted. It assumes that cuisines develop in place, evolving from simple peasant cooking of local ingredients to refined high cuisine in cities. Hawaii, where successive waves of migrants had introduced and naturalized cuisines from distant places, was a striking exception to the model. The alternative naturalized model provided the key to writing a global food history, which, in turn, shed new light on Hawaii's place in food history.
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In the mid seventeenth century there was a revolution in Western high cuisine, particularly French high cuisine. Why? I argue that it resulted from a change in the theory of nutrition and digestion.
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When Mexico’s leading writer, Nobel Prize laureate Octavio Paz, arrived in New Delhi in 1962 to take up his post as ambassador to India, he quickly ran across a culinary puzzle. Although Mexico and India were on opposite sides of the... more
When Mexico’s leading writer, Nobel Prize laureate Octavio Paz, arrived in New Delhi in 1962 to take up his post as ambassador to India, he quickly ran across a culinary puzzle. Although Mexico and India were on opposite sides of the globe, the brown, spicy, aromatic curries that he was offered in India sparked memories of Mexico’s national dish, mole (pronounced MO-lay). Is mole, he wondered, “an ingenious Mexican version of curry, or is curry a Hindu adaptation of a Mexican sauce?” How could this seeming coincidence of “gastronomic geography” be explained?
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It is often claimed that the semitas of the Mexico/US border region are a specifically Jewish bread. I conclude that this is false etymology. They were originally the lowest of the various grades of wheat bread and were eaten by many... more
It is often claimed that the semitas of the Mexico/US border region are a specifically Jewish bread. I conclude that this is false etymology. They were originally the lowest of the various grades of wheat bread and were eaten by many groups in colonial and post-colonial Mexico, including Jews. I piece together as much as I can of the diffusion of this bread from Europe to Mexico and across Mexico (including the use of a variety of raising agents).
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I argue that Petrini's claims that Slow Food can save the world are bloated and that it is essentially a gastronomic movement.
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I argue that the dramatic change in French (and north European) cuisine in the mid 17th century followed from a change in chemical theory inspired by the search for a Protestant chemisty.
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What was going on in colonial Mexican food? Chiles, Chocolate and Race, an article I wrote with Jeffrey Pilcher.
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Uses the concepts of cuisine, culinary philosophy, culinary determinism, and culinary geography to analyse the cross-national studies in this volume.
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Mary Sia, who wrote the pioneering, and still one of the best introductions to Cantonese cuisine, led a life that informs Chinese migrant experience in the early twentieth century. Daughter of medical doctors who immigrated to Hawaii from... more
Mary Sia, who wrote the pioneering, and still one of the best introductions to Cantonese cuisine, led a life that informs Chinese migrant experience in the early twentieth century. Daughter of medical doctors who immigrated to Hawaii from Canton in the early twentieth century, returned to Peking with her doctor husband who worked for the Rockefeller Foundation. There she taught the classes that formed the foundation of this cookbook.
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... Origen de la dieta moderna. Autores: Rachel Laudan; Localización: Investigación y ciencia, ISSN 0210-136X, Nº 289, 2000 , págs. 68-74. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario.... more
... Origen de la dieta moderna. Autores: Rachel Laudan; Localización: Investigación y ciencia, ISSN 0210-136X, Nº 289, 2000 , págs. 68-74. Fundación Dialnet. Acceso de usuarios registrados. Acceso de usuarios registrados Usuario. Contraseña. Entrar. Mi Dialnet. ...
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An overview of the two great periods of innovation in Islamic cuisines and of their spread and influence from China to Latin America. http://www.aramcoworld.com/issue/201406/crossroads.and.diasporas.a.thousand.years.of.islamic.cuisines.htm
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Jeanelle Kam describes how her Hawaiian-Chinese family celebrated a lu'au in the second half of the twentieth century on the island of Oahu.
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Discusses the shift to new staple foods and their relevance to the Columbian Exchange, the Black Rice Hypothesis, and the Geertz-Elvin hypothesis of involution and high level involution traps (and the reaction of the California School)... more
Discusses the shift to new staple foods and their relevance to the Columbian Exchange, the Black Rice Hypothesis, and the Geertz-Elvin hypothesis of involution and high level involution traps (and the reaction of the California School) to explain differing rates of industrialization in the West and in China.
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A tour de force of scholarship, this translation reveals the lengths that imperial courts went to to ensure that the cuisine reflected and reinforced their politics.
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At last! A book that offers an overview of much serious recent scholarship on culinary history and that is readable in the bargain. We owe this gift to the editorial vision of Paul Freedman, professor of history at Yale University, and... more
At last! A book that offers an overview of much serious recent scholarship on culinary history and that is readable in the bargain. We owe this gift to the editorial vision of Paul Freedman, professor of history at Yale University, and himself author of the recent Out of the East: ...
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John Stewart's quantitative study of continental drift and plate tectonics1 is a welcome addition to the literature on this topic, which has been dominated by qualitative histories on the one hand, and by debates about the... more
John Stewart's quantitative study of continental drift and plate tectonics1 is a welcome addition to the literature on this topic, which has been dominated by qualitative histories on the one hand, and by debates about the philosophical implications of the plate tectonic ...
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Suggests that engineers, like scientists, engaged in systematic problem solving and that therefore there are parallels between theories of scientific change and theories of technological change.
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Reviews the literature on technological change up to the 1980s, arguing that theoretical knowledge of the causes and mechanisms of technological change is much needed.
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FRANK BURSLEY TAYLOR'S THEORY OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT Rachei Laudan Science Studies Center Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061 In the first decades of the twentieth century several scientists... more
FRANK BURSLEY TAYLOR'S THEORY OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT Rachei Laudan Science Studies Center Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061 In the first decades of the twentieth century several scientists proposed that the major surface features of the ...
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REDEFINITIONS OF A DISCIPLINE: HISTORIES OF GEOLOGY AND GEOLOGICAL HISTORY RACHEL LAUDAN Center for the Study of Science in Society, and Department of History, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 1. Introduction Periods of... more
REDEFINITIONS OF A DISCIPLINE: HISTORIES OF GEOLOGY AND GEOLOGICAL HISTORY RACHEL LAUDAN Center for the Study of Science in Society, and Department of History, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 1. Introduction Periods of rapid theory change or' ...
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Analyzes why Dutch oceanographers working in Indonesia developed theories of convection currents in the mantle and their importance in mountain building. Argues that it is a mistake to assume that geophysicists in the first half of the... more
Analyzes why Dutch oceanographers working in Indonesia developed theories of convection currents in the mantle and their importance in mountain building. Argues that it is a mistake to assume that geophysicists in the first half of the twentieth century can be divided into permanentists and mobilists.
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RACHEL LAUDAN THE METHOD OF MULTIPLE WORKING HYPOTHESES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PLATE TECTONIC THEORY One of the more curious aspects of most recent theories of scientific change is that their proponents have left unexplained how... more
RACHEL LAUDAN THE METHOD OF MULTIPLE WORKING HYPOTHESES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PLATE TECTONIC THEORY One of the more curious aspects of most recent theories of scientific change is that their proponents have left unexplained how scientific change can occur at ...
For Hutton, as for other late eighteenth-century geologists, a key problem was how loose sediments at the bottom of the ocean were consolidated into rock. Werner and his followers argued they were precipitated out of water. Hutton argued... more
For Hutton, as for other late eighteenth-century geologists, a key problem was how loose sediments at the bottom of the ocean were consolidated into rock. Werner and his followers argued they were precipitated out of water. Hutton argued that they heated to a liquid and subsequently cooled and solidified. This was so even with the calcareous remains of living beings, crucial to his theory that the habitable earth was constantly regenerated. However it was common knowledge calcareous rocks (limestone) disintegrated on heating. Although Hutton asserted that high pressures prevented this disintegration, he had no evidence. Consequently his theory was widely rejected.
From the start, Sue rejects the program of the older generation of historians for whom "scientific ideas floated free in the air, as historians gazed up at them in wonder and admiration" (Ophir and Shapin 1991, p. 3).... more
From the start, Sue rejects the program of the older generation of historians for whom "scientific ideas floated free in the air, as historians gazed up at them in wonder and admiration" (Ophir and Shapin 1991, p. 3). Instead she intends to place herself with those who ask "What if ...
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Argues that William Smith, author of the first important stratigraphic map of England and Wales, did not use fossils to identify strata. Rather he identified strata by their surface features and lithography, and then collected fossils... more
Argues that William Smith, author of the first important stratigraphic map of England and Wales, did not use fossils to identify strata. Rather he identified strata by their surface features and lithography, and then collected fossils grouping them by previously identified strata-
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It might seem that the alliance between the study of the history of science and the study of the history of technology is a natural one. But the fact is that relations have not always been easy, and such interactions as there have been... more
It might seem that the alliance between the study of the history of science and the study of the history of technology is a natural one. But the fact is that relations have not always been easy, and such interactions as there have been have often resembled a forced mar- ...
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Overview and critique of the "received view" of this formative period in the history of geology. Suggests that terms such as "uniformitarian" and "catastrophist" need to be dropped, that continental geologists need to be given more... more
Overview and critique of the "received view" of this formative period in the history of geology. Suggests that terms such as "uniformitarian" and "catastrophist" need to be dropped, that continental geologists need to be given more attention, and that the old notion of antagonism between geology and religion needs to be reconsidered.
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TENSIONS IN THE CONCEPT OF GEOLOGY: NATURAL HISTORY OR NATURAL PHILOSOPHY? RACHEL LAUDAN Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, Virginia 24061 ABSTRACT Under the general term "geology"... more
TENSIONS IN THE CONCEPT OF GEOLOGY: NATURAL HISTORY OR NATURAL PHILOSOPHY? RACHEL LAUDAN Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, Virginia 24061 ABSTRACT Under the general term "geology" there exist two ...
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Argues that the problems of reconstructing the past whether human or geological are not different in kind from other scientific problems. Includes a discussion of descriptive geology/chronology and causal geology.
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It is widely supposed that the scientists in any field use identical standards for evaluating theories. Without such unity of standards, consensus about sci- entific theories is supposedly unintelligible. However, the hypothesis of... more
It is widely supposed that the scientists in any field use identical standards for evaluating theories. Without such unity of standards, consensus about sci- entific theories is supposedly unintelligible. However, the hypothesis of uniform standards can explain neither scientific ...
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To convince their publics that science was an important enterprise that should be funded and taught in schools and universities, scientists turned to history to contrast the progress of scientific knowledge with the stagnation of the... more
To convince their publics that science was an important enterprise that should be funded and taught in schools and universities, scientists turned to history to contrast the progress of scientific knowledge with the stagnation of the humanities. As science evolved, so did scientists' analysis of scientific progress.
Argues that it is more fruitful to place Lyell in the methodological traditions of the early nineteenth century than to describe him as a uniformitarian. Specifically, Lyell adapted the vera causa (true cause) method deriving from Newton... more
Argues that it is more fruitful to place Lyell in the methodological traditions of the early nineteenth century than to describe him as a uniformitarian. Specifically, Lyell adapted the vera causa (true cause) method deriving from Newton to the case of sciences of the past.
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The authors call for a more thorough testing of the empirical claims of recent theories of scientific change. To facilitate this the empirical claims of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos and Laudan are listed in nontechnical language, both by... more
The authors call for a more thorough testing of the empirical claims of recent theories of scientific change. To facilitate this the empirical claims of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos and Laudan are listed in nontechnical language, both by author and by topic. A bibliography of case studies is included.