The Hungry City: A Year in the Life of Medieval Barcelona
By Marie A. Kelleher
Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9781501779381
This book offers a compelling account of the famine that struck Barcelona in 1333–34, reconstructed through the records of the city’s government. Vividly written yet firmly grounded in the sources, it stands as a fitting culmination of Kelleher’s work as a medievalist.
Excerpt:
By focusing on a single year, this book attempts to draw together what have, up until now, been relatively distinct approaches to the history of the city, using the 1333/1334 famine not as an object of study in and of itself but rather as the frame for a portrait of the city as a whole. One obvious reason to focus on a year like this one is the increase in documentation that calamity tends to produce. But famine and shortage provide more than just a convenient trove of historical records. Food geographers have noted the many ways that food weaves its way through the social, political, economic, and cultural fabrics of any given time or place. Medieval Barcelona’s food system connected the city’s local, regional, and Mediterranean geographies, even as it bound together its rulers and ruled, its merchants, artisans, and laborers, its religious and secular authorities, its donors and recipients of charity, its insider and outsider groups. Food thus provides an ideal lens through which to view the whole of a society.
Who is this book for?
Many medievalists will want to read this book, because it offers so much to the field—social and urban history, food history, and political history, all woven together. Even if your own research lies outside fourteenth-century Iberia, it remains a strong and useful contribution to medieval studies.
You can hear more of why Medievalists.net chose this to be our Book of the Year in this recent episode of The Medieval Podcast:
The Author
Marie Kelleher was a Professor at California State University Long Beach. She passed away in 2024, just as she was finishing this book, and her friends and colleagues worked together to complete the publication.
The Hungry City: A Year in the Life of Medieval Barcelona
By Marie A. Kelleher
Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9781501779381
This book offers a compelling account of the famine that struck Barcelona in 1333–34, reconstructed through the records of the city’s government. Vividly written yet firmly grounded in the sources, it stands as a fitting culmination of Kelleher’s work as a medievalist.
Excerpt:
By focusing on a single year, this book attempts to draw together what have, up until now, been relatively distinct approaches to the history of the city, using the 1333/1334 famine not as an object of study in and of itself but rather as the frame for a portrait of the city as a whole. One obvious reason to focus on a year like this one is the increase in documentation that calamity tends to produce. But famine and shortage provide more than just a convenient trove of historical records. Food geographers have noted the many ways that food weaves its way through the social, political, economic, and cultural fabrics of any given time or place. Medieval Barcelona’s food system connected the city’s local, regional, and Mediterranean geographies, even as it bound together its rulers and ruled, its merchants, artisans, and laborers, its religious and secular authorities, its donors and recipients of charity, its insider and outsider groups. Food thus provides an ideal lens through which to view the whole of a society.
Who is this book for?
Many medievalists will want to read this book, because it offers so much to the field—social and urban history, food history, and political history, all woven together. Even if your own research lies outside fourteenth-century Iberia, it remains a strong and useful contribution to medieval studies.
You can hear more of why Medievalists.net chose this to be our Book of the Year in this recent episode of The Medieval Podcast:
The Author
Marie Kelleher was a Professor at California State University Long Beach. She passed away in 2024, just as she was finishing this book, and her friends and colleagues worked together to complete the publication.
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website
You can also buy this book on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
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