The first decades of the 20th century were marked by a crisis. The impact of the Great War the
rise of the workers' revolutionary movement and the National Socialist expansion as well as the
disaster of the 1929 crash and the great depression of the 1930s created a landscape of tension
radicalism and political instability. In this context nutrition emerges as an excellent ground
from which to explore the genesis of experimental knowledge the social interests involved and
the transfer of knowledge and practices to public health the economy trade and politics. The
exceptional confluence of all factors influencing the interwar period contributed to building
the problem of nutrition. This book offers a wide perspective including international agencies
committed to a global approach to define nutritional problems agricultural reforms surveys in
different countries and rural areas methodological agreements on nutritional standards the
main trends of experimental research the dreadful impact of the war and some experiments
developed in internment camps. The author examines nutrition as a cornerstone to show
interactions between science politics economy and public health.
