How beef conquered America and gave rise to the modern industrial food
complex
By the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to
expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal. Beef production
in the United States had gone from small-scale, localized operations to
a highly centralized industry spanning the country, with cattle bred on
ranches in the rural West, slaughtered in Chicago, and consumed in the
nation's rapidly growing cities. Red Meat Republic tells the
remarkable story of the violent conflict over who would reap the
benefits of this new industry and who would bear its heavy costs.
Joshua Specht puts people at the heart of his story--the big cattle
ranchers who helped to drive the nation's westward expansion, the
meatpackers who created a radically new kind of industrialized
slaughterhouse, and the stockyard workers who were subjected to the
shocking and unsanitary conditions described by Upton Sinclair in his
novel The Jungle. Specht brings to life a turbulent era marked by
Indian wars, Chicago labor unrest, and food riots in the streets of New
York. He shows how the enduring success of the cattle-beef
complex--centralized, low cost, and meatpacker dominated--was a
consequence of the meatpackers' ability to make their interests overlap
with those of a hungry public, while the interests of struggling
ranchers, desperate workers, and bankrupt butchers took a backseat.
America--and the American table--would never be the same again.
A compelling and unfailingly enjoyable read, Red Meat Republic reveals
the complex history of exploitation and innovation behind the food we
consume today.
