Here’s a book I hope I take the time to read when it comes out: “The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World Since 1700″, reviewed here in the NYT.
The book is an investigation into how and why people have gotten bigger over the last few hundred years. It mostly boils down to nutrition and health, of course, which is, in turn, related to technological improvements. Yawn, perhaps.
But I like these books because I like reading about how people put data together to prove big ideas. Not easy to do.
Not Unreasonable 