Jennifer Lacy-Nichols reviews Marion Nestle’s “Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning),” a book that explores the political strategies used by the soft drink industry.

Romina Delmonte reviews Jean Pierre Poulain’s “The Sociology of Food: Eating and the Place of Food in Society,” as translated by Augusta Dörr, which reads as a theoretical essay and an introductory guide to sociologies of food.

Jeffrey Rowe reviews Alison Hope Alkon and Julie Guthman’s edited volume “The New Food Activism: Opposition, Cooperation, and Collective Action,” which he reads as a call to action.

Erica Zurawski reviews Emma-Jayne Abbots’s “The Agency of Eating: Mediation, Food and the Body,” which unites the eater, food, and knowledge to demonstrate the entanglement of matter and meaning-making.

Catherine Price reviews John T. Lang’s “What’s So Controversial about Genetically Modified Food?” She suggests that the book uses GM debates as an entry point to examine the whole of the food system.

Jessica Carbone reviews Henry Notaker’s “A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page over Seven Centuries,” a book which she argues is a biography of the cookbook genre.

Peter Mabli reviews Camille Bégin’s “Taste of the Nation: The New Deal Search for America’s Food examines the America Eats,” which sensorially interprets America Eats, a partially completed endeavor by the New Deal’s Federal Writers Project.

James Edward Malin reviews Samantha L. Martin-McAuliffe’s edited volume of thirteen original essays, which examine the intersection of food and architecture through relationships of regionalism, sustainability, craft, and authenticity.

Cassandra Malis reviews Adrian Miller’s “The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas,” which dives into the history behind food workers in the White House, adding a historical perspective to current political conversation about African American foodways.

Claudia Prieto-Piastro reviews Sarah Bowen’s “Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production,” which combines anthropological and historical methods to reveal the politics behind the increased popularity of tequila and mezcal production in Mexico.