{"product_id":"nutritional-imperialism-hilary-a-smith-9781421455259","title":"Nutritional Imperialism: How Science Turned Difference Into Sickness in China","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow Western nutrition science defined difference as disease in modern China.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor more than a century, Western observers have treated Chinese foodways as evidence of deficiency, danger, or backwardness. In \u003ci\u003eNutritional Imperialism\u003c\/i\u003e, Hilary A. Smith shows how these assumptions entered the heart of modern nutrition science and reshaped understandings of health, diet, and difference. Nutrition scientists, physicians, and policymakers presented Western dietary patterns as universal benchmarks of health and transformed ordinary physiological variation into signs of pathology. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeginning in the late nineteenth century, Western researchers compared Chinese diets to Euro-American norms and framed rice-based, low-dairy, and low-meat eating patterns as evidence of weakness. Over time, these judgments hardened into scientific claims about vitamin deficiency, protein insufficiency, lactose intolerance, and alcohol metabolism--each treated as a disorder requiring intervention. The book follows these ideas from the early twentieth century to the early twenty-first, showing how Chinese scientists and officials both adopted and contested nutritional standards shaped elsewhere. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThrough detailed historical cases, \u003ci\u003eNutritional Imperialism\u003c\/i\u003e calls for closer scrutiny of how science defines normalcy. The book offers a powerful reminder that expertise is never neutral--and that nutritional standards carry political consequences long after their origins are forgotten.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Hilary A. Smith\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1421455250\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781421455259\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Johns Hopkins University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/06\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 264\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.59d","brand":"Hilary A. Smith","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48623570387199,"sku":"9781421455259","price":64.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/nutritional-imperialism-hilary-a-smith-9781421455259","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}