Ever wondered how “factory farms” came to be, why chicken nuggets were invented, or where the idea of feeding hormones and antibiotics to livestock came from in the first place?

The Price of Plenty offers answers that may surprise you, in a compulsively readable and distinctly American tale of abundance, invention, and exceptionalism.

Historian Maureen Ogle unfolds the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the nation’s meat-making infrastructure, from colonial cattle wars to the rise of Swift, Armour, and Tyson to today’s alt-cuisine. Tracing consumer desires, profit motives, and policy imperatives, this absorbing narrative shows how an insatiable appetite for meat carved America’s landscape and identity.

When white Europeans arrived in North America, the abundance of land enabled meat consumption on a scale unheard of in the Old World. There, an average European was lucky to see meat once a week, while even a poor American consumed about two hundred pounds a year.

The panoramic story of how we got from that meat-eater’s paradise to the complexities and contradictions of today is told here through a wide range of sources and records – forming an indispensable guide to the American way of meat and its unexpected consequences.