The taste of war : World War II and the battle for food / Lizzie Collingham.

Includes bibliographical references ( pages 581-620) and index.

War and food -- Food, an engine of war -- Germany's quest for empire -- From wheat to meat -- Defeat, hunger and the legacy of the First World War -- Autarky and Lebensraum -- Herbert Backe and the hunger plan -- Genocide in the East -- Japan's quest for empire -- A radical answer to rural crisis -- One million households in Manchuria -- From Nanjing to Pearl Harbor -- Contents -- The battle for food -- American boom -- Feeding Britain -- From meat to bread and potatoes -- American dried egg and Argentinian corned beef -- The battle of the Atlantic -- The worst winter of the war -- The American lifeline -- Frozen meat versus men and arms victory in the Atlantic -- Mobilizing the British Empire -- The Middle East supply centre -- Profiteering in East Africa -- West Africa and the dollar deficit -- The Bengal famine -- Feeding Germany -- The battle for production -- The occupation of western Europe -- Greek famine and Belgian resilience -- Allies and aryans -- Germany exports hunger to the east -- Living off the land -- Implementing the hunger plan -- The food crisis of 1941-42 -- The holocaust in Poland -- Food confiscation in the Ukraine -- Soviet collapse -- Contents -- Japan's journey towards starvation -- Rice and sweet potatoes -- Chaos and hunger in the empire -- China divided -- Nationalist collapse -- Communist survival -- The politics of food -- Japan -- starving for the Emperor -- Healthy eating as a patriotic virtue -- Churchill's rations -- The American blockade -- Guadalcanal -- New Guinea -- Burma -- Hunger on the home islands -- Surrender -- The Soviet Union -- Fighting on empty -- Feeding the Red Army -- Feeding the cities -- The American lifeline -- Perseverance despite hunger -- Germany and Britain -- two approaches to entitlement -- 1930s Britain -- a nutritional divide -- 1930s Germany -- the campaign for nutritional freedom -- The politics of rationing -- Feeding the British working classes -- Feeding the German war machine -- The black market -- The German cities -- hungry but not starving -- Contents -- The British Empire -- war as welfare -- Dr. Carrot -- guarding the British nation's health -- Closing the nutritional gap -- Health and morale -- the Army Catering Corps -- Fighting on bully beef and biscuits -- Porridge, peas and vitamins -- Nutritional reconditioning -- The Indian Army -- The United States -- out of depression and into abundance -- The "good war" -- Future hopes -- Troop welfare -- Australia -- food processing for victory -- Feeding Pacific Islanders -- The aftermath -- A hungry world -- A world of plenty -- American plenty versus European relief -- A vision for the future -- The shape of the post-war food world -- The rise of the new consumer -- A selective chronology of the Second World War.