3/2/11
The Taste of War While the majority of historical works on WWII usually focus on the ideologies involved in the war, The Taste of War, written by Lizzie Collingham, takes a different route with an unusual concept: food. Collingham places food at the center of the war, i.e. that food played a major role in the land grab that was perpetrated by the Axis powers and the war in general. After reading through the book, it is apparent that Collingham makes a strong, and ultimately, a valid argument. However, I don’t completely agree that food played the only major role in the war, and after reading through the book, I am not sure that Collingham implies this either, mainly because other aspects of the war are simply not discussed in much detail, and there is no comparative research done. Even before the war had begun, we see a general idea as to what the role of food was in the war. Take for example the collectivization of agriculture that Stalin brought about in Russia. This allowed Stalin to consolidate his power so that the peasants in Russia wouldn’t rise up against him. This collectivization led to the deaths of millions in Russia, and 6 million alone in Ukraine, all before the war had even begun (McKay 848-849). During the war itself, we see Germany using its occupied territories like Poland, France, and Ukraine to bring in forced labor, in the form of men, women and children, to work on German agriculture production. Without this forced labor, Germany would not have even been able to maintain its rush through Europe and Russia, as this forced labor accounted for nearly 20% of German food produced throughout the war (Collingham 178). Even more telling is that Germany followed a rationing system in which the soldiers were allowed a much larger ration than the ordinary working man (Collingham 198). At the height of the war, the German army, totaling 1/7th of