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Sherene Seikaly. Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016. xii + 258 pp. ISBN-13 978-0-8047-9288-2, $85.00 (cloth); 978-0-8047-9661-3, $24.95 (paper).

The final section, Part III, “Power and Control,” points out that rice production requires an unusually large amount of control—over the rice itself, the land, water, and labor. This has then shaped the ways in which governments and societies have been organized. Walter Hawthorne (chapter 12) reintroduces the Black Rice debate, but reframes it as a loss of meaning attached to rice work by slaves. He points out that rice skills in the New World were not tied to cultural identity and conceptions of self as they had been. No longer a source of pride and personal agency, the work was only for survival, as was all slave work. In chapter 13, Peter Coclanis vehemently challenges the debate, offering detailed analyses in support of his argument that although the origins of rice in the United States may have been indebted to African slaves, modern U.S. rice cultivation is based in midwestern and “white” values and innovations. Penelope Francks (chapter 13) shifts the discussion to Japan, where she demonstrates that the maintenance of small-scale rice production has allowed for more equitable benefits for farmers than those offered by the largescale corporate farms that are standard in the West. To summarize, food cries out for an interdisciplinary approach, a fact that serves as the foundation for food studies. In that sense, this volume is not new or revolutionary. However, by grounding this study in the field of history, this book demonstrates not only the usefulness of drawing from multiple approaches, but also interrogates the discipline itself. This volume offers a wealth of information about rice along with much food for thought about how and why to study food.