he traditional approach to history is compartmen- talized and linear, which may be the way you experienced the
study of history in school. Some of you might remember memoriz- ing lists of dates and events. Helen Zoe Veit, PhD, associate profes- sor of history at Michigan State University, specializes in American history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on the history of food and nutrition. Her first book, Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century, was a finalist for the 2014 James Beard Award for Reference and Scholarship.1
Veit maintains that
history is far richer than a collection of dates and that studying his- tory opens our minds and allows us to better understand how we interpret the world around us.