A History of the World in Twelve Beans (Joël Broekaert)

In A History of the World in Twelve Beans, food writer and history buff Joël Broekaert reveals how beans have profoundly shaped human history, culture, and society, through millennia and across continents.

Beans have been long dismissed as the “common person’s food”—a cheap and nutritious form of protein that replaces expensive meat—and are often the butt of jokes about flatulence (enough to make some Greek philosophers forbid their followers from eating them). But beans, as Broekaert shows, are surprisingly mighty. Fava beans helped pull medieval Europe out of the Dark Ages and fuel a population boom. While soy powered the Chinese empire, thanks to the culinary innovations that turned a nearly indigestible bean into delicious miso, soy sauce, and tofu.

The story of beans is also a story of colonialism, exploitation, and survival. The common bean, originating in the Americas and central to the diet of many Indigenous Peoples, crossed the Atlantic as part of the “Columbian exchange” of new foods—along with devastating diseases that decimated Indigenous populations. Cocoa and coffee beans became engines of colonial wealth, slavery, and revolution. Yet beans can also be a symbol of hope. Black-eyes peas, carried to the Americas with enslaved Africans, became a soul food staple and an emblem of Black emancipation. Today, beans are even being promoted as a solution to climate change and food insecurity, with high-tech meat substitutes made from lupin beans in the works.

Blending botany, anthropology, culture, economics, and environmental issues, A History of the World in Twelve Beans is a witty, surprising, and eye-opening tour of world history as told through legumes. As Broekaert shows, beans have not only shaped human civilization; they might be a key to a sustainable future, too.