The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure

The Slow Food movement was established in Italy as a response to the dominance of fast food chains, supermarkets, and large-scale agribusiness. Defending "the universal right to pleasure," it promotes food production and consumption based on "good, clean, and fair" local products. In twenty years Slow Food has grown into an international organisation with more than 80,000 members in over 100 countries. With roots in the 1960s and 1970s counter-culture, Slow Food's distinctive politics link gastronomic pleasure and environmental responsibility. The movement crosses the left-right divide to embrace both the conservative desire to preserve traditional rural communities and an alternative "virtuous" idea of globalisation. In the first in-depth study of the fascinating politics of Slow Food, Geoff Andrews shows that the alternative future it offers can be extended to all aspects of modern life. The Slow Food Story is an extensive critique of the fast-moving, work-obsessed contemporary capitalist culture.

"The Slow Food Story is the best account so far of the history and animating ideas behind Slow Food. An indispensable introduction." Michael Pollan, author on In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

"The Slow Food Story is the essential one-stop critical guide to the history, ideas, structure, and membership of the Slow Food movement." Dr John Dickie, Italian Studies, University College London

"The Slow Food Story takes us all around the world, beginning in Italy. It is the story of a visceral, powerful effort, committed to cultural and biological diversity, to the value of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage, to eco-gastronomy and to a scale of living that is economically and spiritually more human." Susan Salter Reynolds, The LA Times

The first book detailing the rise of Slow Food - one of the most significant political movements of modern times.

Geoff Andrews, the author of several books including Not a Normal Country: Italy After Berlusconi and Endgames and New Times: The Final Years of British Communism, writes for a range of newspapers and journals - including The Financial Times and Open Democracy - and is associate editor of Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture . He is currently staff tutor in politics, the Open University.