Leonard Barkan is the Class of 1943 University Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. His books include Mute Poetry, Speaking Pictures (Princeton), Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture, and Satyr Square: A Year, a Life in Rome. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Twitter @LeonardBarkan
A foundational text of Food Studies. . . . This book does for food in art and literature what Sidney Mintz did for food and global politics in Sweetness and Power. It should be right up there with Mintz's book as a foundational text of Food Studies. . . . Everyone interested in Food Studies as a discipline, food in art, and anything having to do with food and culture will want to read this book-for its ideas, its gorgeousness, and for sheer pleasure. ---Marion Nestle, Food Politics It's unusual to have a culinary history that is also highly recommended for arts holdings; but The Hungry Eye is a feast of mind and eye that holds much food for thought for scholarly audiences interested in a different approach to food and drink's importance in human affairs. * Donovan's Literary Services * Leonard Barkan has written a terrific book that ranges far more widely than one might expect, is impressively learned, and yet is remarkably accessible and often entertaining. . . . One closes the book convinced of the centrality of food and drink in European culture. This is a fine addition to the literature on the history of food that adds depth to the largely narrative histories that have preceded it. ---Rod Phillips, The World of Fine Wine