Part of a series of highly entertaining books on the history of sinning. Eating too much is one of the Western world's greatest problems, but relatively few people would consider it a crime against God. Yet even as gluttony has ceased to be an evil, food and dieting have become a cultural obsessions, with millions of pounds expended on mortifying the flesh with punishing diet and exercise regimes. This brief history of gluttony traces the changing cultural attitudes towards food and pleasure, scarcity and abundance. It reveals how notions of saintliness and purity have helped form modern views of enjoyment, self-mortification, and ultimately nutrition. Restaurant-goers and readers of gourmet magazines rationalize their pursuit of too much food in many ways, but does a slight tinge of guilt makes your meal taste that much better? This book provides the answer, thoroughly exploring humankind's attempts to quell its chief survival strategy - eating.

About the Author
Francine Prose's many works include Blue Angel, The Lives of the Muses, and, most recently, Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles. She is a contributing editor at Harper's and writes on art for The Wall Street Journal.

Reviews
'Simon Blackburn on lust and Joseph Epstein on envy have produced little classics: written, researched and argued exemplarily, they take their topics seriously but discuss them with elegance and humour as well as insight. Francine Prose on gluttony joins them at the top of the list with a kind and thoughtful meditation.' * A.C. Grayling, Financial Times Magazine *
An elegant and thoughtful essay * The Times Literary Supplement *



Book Information
ISBN 9780195156997
Author Francine Prose
Format Hardback
Page Count 128
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 320g
Dimensions(mm) 186mm * 132mm * 15mm