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Title details for Red Meat Republic by Joshua Specht - Available

Red Meat Republic

A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America

#3 in series

by Joshua Specht
John Chancer
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
In this audiobook, John Chancer narrates the story of how beef conquered America and gave rise to the modern industrial food complex By the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal. Beef production in the United States had gone from small-scale, localized operations to a highly centralized industry spanning the country, with cattle bred on ranches in the rural West, slaughtered in Chicago, and consumed in the nation's rapidly growing cities. Red Meat Republic tells the remarkable story of the violent conflict over who would reap the benefits of this new industry and who would bear its heavy costs. Joshua Specht puts people at the heart of his story—the big cattle ranchers who helped to drive the nation's westward expansion, the meatpackers who created a radically new kind of industrialized slaughterhouse, and the stockyard workers who were subjected to the shocking and unsanitary conditions described by Upton Sinclair in his novel The Jungle. Specht brings to life a turbulent era marked by Indian wars, Chicago labor unrest, and food riots in the streets of New York. He shows how the enduring success of the cattle-beef complex—centralized, low cost, and meatpacker dominated—was a consequence of the meatpackers' ability to make their interests overlap with those of a hungry public, while the interests of struggling ranchers, desperate workers, and bankrupt butchers took a backseat. America—and the American table—would never be the same again. Compelling and unfailingly enjoyable, Red Meat Republic reveals the complex history of exploitation and innovation behind the food we consume today.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Histories of Economic Life

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 7, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780691193496
      • File size: 272687 KB
      • Duration: 09:28:05

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      John Chancer does yeoman work bringing this history to life. He narrates with good forward momentum and almost overcomes the challenges that this repetitive and turgid work presents. This audiobook on a compelling subject--the history of the nineteenth- century meat industry from prairie to packer--often suffers from an academic approach: Every assertion is qualified, every point reiterated; it tells rather than shows and explains where it might demonstrate. More's the pity because there is much to be learned here. The work is well researched. The listener hears the multilayered history of cattle raising, transporting, slaughtering, and finishing. Ultimately, ranchers, railway owners, and butchers were all beholden to the powerful Chicago meat packers. And who knew that poorly paid cowboys ever went on strike? A.D.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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