The Fruits of Empire

“Richly illustrated and supported with meticulous research, The Fruits of Empire demonstrates the essential need to understand the history and politics behind our food consumption. In the midst of a national reckoning with racism in the United States generally and in the arts specifically, we as art historians need to use our scholarly platforms to raise consciousness about the racist and nativist origins of our national visual culture. As Klein’s book deftly demonstrates in the context of the fruit industry, images matter. But, as she also argues, so do Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latinx lives.” 

— Agricultural History

“Klein offers a concrete and approachable doorway to a discussion and study of race in America. She tells a compelling story, devoid of jargon and not requiring specialized knowledge, while still grounded in rigorous research.”

— Food, Culture & Society

"The Fruits of Empire is a shrewdly articulated body of research. Shana Klein tells these stories with accessible panache and much conceptual originality. . . . In an enterprising new field, her book has already set an exacting standard."

— The World of Fine Wine

“The selection of works in The Fruits of Empire leaves little place for humor, irony, or disapproval. Part of the reason for Klein’s largely deterministic interpretation may well lie in the absence of any attempt at classifying visual images and the different values and aims that propel advertisement (sales), painting (aesthetics), and photography (record). Yet, if Klein does not capture the entire, complicated story of art and imperial expansion, she tells an important and often sorry part of it.”

— Journal of Interdisciplinary History