"Completely fascinating, Pinney's History of Wine in America combines a myriad of facts about all the states that have endeavored to grow grapes at any time since colonial days into a readable and coherent story. The only study to approach wine through its historical aspects, it will be invaluable to wine writers who want to include historical perspectives in their articles and it will be seized upon by grape growers and wineries throughout the country who want to discover their region's historical roots in viticulture and winemaking. A significant contribution to scholarship, this book should have broad appeal."—John R. McGrew, USDA Agricultural Research Service (retired)

That rosy tomato perched on your plate in December is at the end of a great journey—not just over land and sea, but across a vast and varied cultural history. This is the territory charted in Fresh. Opening the door of an ordinary refrigerator, it tells the curious story of the quality stored inside: freshness. We want fresh foods to keep us healthy, and to connect us to nature and community. We also want them convenient, pretty, and cheap. Fresh traces our paradoxical hunger to its roots in the rise of mass consumption, when freshness seemed both proof of and an antidote to progress. Susanne Freidberg begins with refrigeration, a trend as controversial at the turn of the twentieth century as genetically modified crops are today. Consumers blamed cold storage for high prices and rotten eggs but, ultimately, aggressive marketing, advances in technology, and new ideas about health and hygiene overcame this distrust. Freidberg then takes six common foods from the refrigerator to discover what each has to say about our notions of freshness. Fruit, for instance, shows why beauty trumped taste at a surprisingly early date. In the case of fish, we see how the value of a living, quivering catch has ironically hastened the death of species. And of all supermarket staples, why has milk remained the most stubbornly local? Local livelihoods; global trade; the politics of taste, community, and environmental change: all enter into this lively, surprising, yet sobering tale about the nature and cost of our hunger for freshness.

An annotated listing of titles held at the Garden Library at Dumbarton Oaks, with an introduction discussing the evolution of American garden culture and landscape architecture in the course of the 19th century. Includes a chronological list of titles as well as an index and a good selection of bandw illustrations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR