Almost no one knew what a potato was in 1500. Today they are the world's fourth most important food. How did this happen?

The potato--humble, lumpy, bland, familiar--is a decidedly unglamorous staple of the dinner table. Or is it? John Reader's narrative on the role of the potato i

Photojournalist Reader (Africa: A Biography of the Continent) traces the humble potato from its roots in the Peruvian Andes to J.R. Simplot's multibillion-dolla