Bloomsbury Food Library

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What content is available in Bloomsbury Food Library?

Bloomsbury Food Library is the digital home of the Bloomsbury Food Library Core Collection, Food Sustainability and Security, Global Food Cultures, and Global Food Histories enabling institutions to curate their own bespoke content collections to best suit the needs of their students and scholars.

The Bloomsbury Food Library Core Collection offers cross-searchable access to several major reference works, a selection of food-related images from global galleries, an interactive timeline, and an expanding range of eBook. The collection is updated with new content twice a year.
Launched in 2023, Global Food Histories is a rich collection of 123 eBooks from Reaktion Books’ market leading food studies catalogue.
Food Sustainability and Security brings together 48 key frontlist eBooks from across the Taylor & Francis, ABC-Clio, and Zed Books lists, all in one unique content bundle addressing the vital topics of food sustainability and security.
Global Food Cultures is a vibrant collection of 54 key monographs and reference works from the ABC-Clio list to provide a thorough exploration of global cultures though the unifying lens of food.

Find out more about the content

Is the content included in Bloomsbury Food Library available online anywhere else?

The Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia is available online exclusively in Bloomsbury Food Library, alongside important titles in food studies such as; Food Words, The Sexual Politics of Meat and The Handbook of Food and Anthropology. A limited number of eBooks in the resource are available on other Bloomsbury digital products, including the upcoming Bloomsbury Cultural History, Bloomsbury Design Library and Bloomsbury Collections. All of the eBooks in the resource are fully-indexed exclusively for the resource and can be cross-searched with other related content.

Does the resource cover food studies history across countries?

The resource offers unrivalled coverage of all aspects of food history from almost every country in the world. Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia is organised by geographic region, with detailed articles that cover each country’s food culture, major foodstuffs and recipes. An interactive world map clearly displays all the relevant content for each continent and country, offering the ability to explore easily by geographic area. EBook titles from Taylor & Francis, Zed Books and ABC-Clio provides a truly global perspective of food sustainability and security around the world.

How is ‘food’ defined?

Bloomsbury Food Library features a wide selection of works on food-related studies, from examinations of the history of food in a specific period and culture, to a comparative analysis of contemporary food cultures around the world. Exploring key areas including food systems, food in the media, food justice, power structures in relation to food, and food cultures, the resource has a vast array of research and pedagogy to discover. Using the resource, scholars will understand how food can be used to elucidate how human societies change and interact across time and place. To use Warren Belasco’s words in his Foreword to Food Words (2013): ‘food becomes a way to integrate disparate issues because everything is connected. And thanks to the higher than average quality of food writing, exploring those connections can be innately pleasurable.’

What time period is covered?

The full history of food is covered from prehistoric times to the present day.

Will the resource be updated?

Yes, new and revised content will be added to Bloomsbury Food Library Core Collection twice a year at no extra charge. Updates will include new primary resource images from museums and collections, curated lesson plans and pedagogical resources, additional eBooks in food history, and more.

The Global Food Histories collection will feature updates when new content is available.

There are no updates currently planned to the Food Security and Sustainability collection.

The Global Food Cultures collection will feature updates when new content is available.

Who is the resource for?

Bloomsbury Food Library is an invaluable resource for students, scholars and researchers studying food in disciplines as wide-ranging as history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, human geography, sustainability, agriculture, culinary arts, literary studies, political science, and development studies.