'A visionary look at how quality food should replace money as the new world currency' Tim Spector

'Hugely ambitious and beautifully written...destined to become a modern classic' Bee Wilson

How we search for, make and consume food has defined human history. It transforms our bodies and homes, our politics and our trade, our landscapes and our climate. But by forgetting our culinary heritage and relying on cheap, intensively produced food, we have drifted into a way of life that threatens our planet and ourselves.

What if there were a more sustainable way to eat and live? Drawing on many disciplines, as well as stories of the farmers, designers and economists who are remaking our relationship with food, this inspiring and deeply thoughtful book gives us a provocative and exhilarating vision for change, and points the way to a better future.

'Utterly brilliant' Thomasina Miers

WINNER OF THE 2021 GUILD FOOD OF WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST FOOD BOOK

*Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2020*

A vital call for us to rediscover the way that food binds us to each other and to the natural world, and in doing so find new ways of living -- Christopher Kissane * Guardian *
Steel's ideas have become a matter of urgency -- Clare Saxby * Times Literary Supplement *
Essential reading! A visionary look at how quality food should replace money as the new world currency -- Tim Spector
Steel offsets the obviously weighty subject matter with a lightness of touch and twinkling eye for luminous details… an unambiguously essential read -- George Reynolds * Daily Telegraph *
The beauty of food is that it is so many things at once: necessity and treat, nature and artifice, the subject of science, philosophy, etiquette and art. The book is accordingly multiple in its themes, an all-you-can-eat buffet of thoughts and facts about food...a brave and ambitious book * Observer *
No writer asks more interesting questions about food than Carolyn Steel because no one takes more seriously the profound role of food at the heart of human life. Every time I read her or hear her speak, I can almost feel my mind expanding. This hugely ambitious and beautifully written book shows that the way we eat now is at odds with the way we ate for thousands of years. But so far from being pessimistic, Steel suggests that learning to value food again can also point the way to more fulfilling and sustainable ways of living. Sitopia is a book destined to become a modern classic -- Bee Wilson
Steel’s future society would be one in which we felt in tune with nature and were less addicted to consumerism -- Ben Cooke * The Times *
Steel’s first book, Hungry City, explored how the feeding of cities shaped civilisations over time; with Sitopia she extends her reach. Food shapes our world and the way we live in it. It determines our daily routines, it defines national cultures -- Erica Wagner * Financial Times *
Following her award-winning Hungry City, Carolyn Steel serves us up a second helping of food for thought with Sitopia, which poses the really big questions about food that we should all be asking ourselves right now. Foodie or not, this philosophical call to arms is essential reading for those who want to save the world, one meal at a time -- Allegra McEvedy
Steel brilliantly uses food to demonstrate our ills and their causes. She shows, too, that food, if we value it properly, can heal us… [A] remarkable, prophetic, and desperately urgent book -- Charles Foster * Oldie *

Carolyn Steel is a leading thinker on food and cities. Her first book, Hungry City, received international acclaim, establishing her as an influential voice in a wide variety of fields across academia, industry and the arts. It won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction and was chosen as a BBC Food Programme book of the year. A London-based architect, academic and writer, Carolyn has lectured at the University of Cambridge, London Metropolitan University, Wageningen University and the London School of Economics and is in international demand as a speaker. Her 2009 TED talk has received more than one million views.