Audrey I. Richards (1899–1984) was for many years lecturer in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics and is the author of Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia and Chisungu: a girls’ initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia. She was one of the first anthropologists to study women’s lives and the social sphere and was herself one of the first female anthropologists in British academia.

• Chapter 1 History of the Problem; Chapter 2 Human Relationships and Nutritive Needs; Chapter 3 Food and Family Sentiment in Bantu Society; Chapter 4 Food Production and Incentives to Work; Chapter 5 Kinship Sentiment and Economic Organization; Chapter 6 Economic Functions of the Clan and Tribe; Chapter 7 Food as a Symbol;