© Columbia University Press
Craving Earth: Understanding Pica--the Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice, and Chalk
Paper, 240 pages, 20 halftones, 16 line drawings, 3 tables
ISBN: 978-0-231-14609-8
$22.50
/ £15.50
February, 2011
Cloth, 240 pages, 20 halftones, 16 line drawings, 3 tables
ISBN: 978-0-231-14608-1
$29.50
/ £19.50
"Fascinating! With wit and keen scientific insight, Sera Young has written the landmark study of pica. It is sure to be a classic in anthropology and nutrition for a long time to come." — Gretel H. Pelto, Cornell University
"The human focus of Young's book provides a welcome counterpoint to the strictly medical focus currently available." — David L. Browman, Washington University in St. Louis
"A fascinating romp through the history of pica, an eye-opener for the geophagist, and an elegant piece of quantitative evolutionary analysis. Young has produced an engaging, fast-moving text anchored to rich appendices that document pica in history and literature, its prevalence across human populations and subpopulations, and its association with micronutrient deficiencies." — Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, University of California, Davis
"Young writes like a dream. This masterful work draws upon data, insights, and perspectives from anthropology, history, public health, nutrition, and medicine to offer fascinating answers. A book you'll never forget!" — Carole Browner, University of California, Los Angeles, and author of Neurogenetic Diagnoses: The Power of Hope and the Limits of Today's Medicine
"Young brings a fascinating story from the musty cupboard of old wives' tales into the bright light of science. With fluid prose, a storyteller's style, and a restless curiosity, she peels back the surface of a seemingly bizarre and idiosyncratic behavior to produce a marvelous study of social biology with global reach. This is a book that will entertain as it educates, and it will educate everyone who reads it." — Peter Ellison, Harvard University and editor-in-chief, American Journal of Human Biology
"Sera Young combines a detective's intuition, a scholar's diligence, and her own joyful, indefatigable curiosity to unravel one of the oldest and oddest of human mysteries. I devoured this book like an amylophage on a laundry starch bender." — Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Packing for Mars
"This marvelous book takes the reader on a fascinating historical, literary, and scientific safari. Craving Earth is surely the most in-depth, revealing, and readable publication ever undertaken on geophagia and other aspects of pica. A must read for experts, while also a most enjoyable read for anyone else." — Michael Latham, Cornell University, named Living Legend in Nutrition by the Congress of Nutrition
"Craving Earth is compelling, encyclopedic, and distinctively quirky-an engaging account of eating, soil chemistry, history, religion, ethnography, nutrition, and the social media. It is a book to inspire students and capture the imagination of any reader of the mysteries of geophagia and the idiosyncracies of social life." — Lenore Manderson, Monash University, Australia, and editor, Medical Anthropology
"Quirkily informative." — Adam Kirsch, Barnes & Noble Review
"Accessible and engaging." — Deborah L. Crooks, Journal of Human Biology
"Her slim book is a concise, critical summary of what we do and don't know about eating earth, grounded in an exhaustive search for relevant literature and her own fieldwork in Zanzibar." — Jeremy MacClancy, Times Higher Education
"Accessible." — Sacramento News and Review
"The work serves a very important purpose." — Cornell Daily Sun
"Highly recommended for reading by both interested academics and nonspecialists." — Peter W. Abrahams, Quarterly Review of Biology