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Food, glorious food, is Felipe Fernandez-Armesto’s subject. Not that this is a book of recipes: it’s an erudite and entertaining examination of what and why we eat that transports us far beyond mere physiology. Worried about your status? Check ranking and eating to find your place in society. Interesting questions? Did the Incas cause Darwin to revise his ideas? Darwin was taken aback to discover that Inca hunters released some of the biggest and best animals they caught to improve the species. Why did early farmers persist? Domesticated crops were poor, it seems, compared to their wild forerunners. Find out the answers in Food (Pan, £7.99).