Food is one of the most culturally laden of all human endeavors. Learn a people’s food — the way they make, raise, serve, and eat it — and you will go far toward knowing them.

That is perhaps more true of meat than of any other foodstuff. And nowhere is meat as industrial, as shaped by science, as abundant, or as contentious as in the United States. Carnivore Nation will look at how Americans have shaped and re-shaped the system of livestock production and meat processing and delivery since 1870.

It’s a story that involves oversized egos, self-made millionaires, and ruthless magnates; eccentrics, politicians, and zealots; the famous (Oprah Winfrey and her courtroom face-off with the Texas Beef Group) and the not-so-famous (cattle ranchers and pig farmers).

For more on how I conceived the idea for the book (or, er, more accurately, how the idea found me!), see this blog entry I wrote for Powell’s com.