Capitalist Pigs

Pigs are everywhere in the United States' history. They cleared frontiers and built cities (notably Cincinnati, once known as Porkopolis), served as an early form of welfare, and were at the center of two nineteenth century “pig wars.” American pork fed the hemisphere; lard literally greased the wheels of capitalism.

J. L. Anderson writes an ambitious history of pigs and pig products. Reaching from the Columbian exchange to the present he emphasizes critical stories of production, consumption, and waste in American history. Anderson examines different cultural assumptions about pigs to provide a window into the nation’s regional, racial, and class fault lines, and maps where pigs are (and are not) to reveal a deep history of the American landscape.

Next to "Fascist Pigs" and "Communist Pigs" this book is the second in an informal series of pigs with adjectives. Released in 2019, Capitalist Pigs recounts the fascinating history of Pigs and pork in America since the 16th century.

A contribution to American history, food studies, agricultural history, and animal studies, Capitalist Pigs is an accessible, deeply researched, and often surprising portrait of one of the planet’s most consequential interspecies relationships.