Books by Robert Spengler

Fruit from the Sands:
The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat

Fruit from the Sands takes readers on a culinary journey along the ancient trade routes of Eurasia and describes how the Silk Road directly shaped the foods we eat today. This book received praise from academic and popular sources:

Science News voted Fruit from the Sands a favorite science book of 2019. It also won a Gourmand International Award for culinary writing in 2020.

“Spengler tells a fascinating tale of a culinary past that is just beginning to come into focus…[his] book provides lots of food for thought.” —Science News
“Fruit from the Sands is an excellent example of a comprehensive and entertaining historical and botanical review, providing an enjoyable and cognitive read for scientists, the general public, students, and policymakers.” —Nature
"Fruits from the Sands is NOT a book you sit down and read in one sitting(!) But, it IS a book that you are likely to turn to again and again for that extra bit of insight into the story behind the food on your plate, which is the true test of great plants-and-people storytelling." – Botany One

Fruit from the Sands is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and Chinese editions.

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What People Are Saying

"A delightful raconteur and astute field archeobotanist, Spengler relates this history in a personalized manner, as if he is conversing with the reader. His command of both botany and linguistics gives readers a front-row seat to historic discoveries about culinary traditions that will dramatically alter the way they think about populations living thousands of miles apart."

Gary Paul Nabhan, University of Arizona
“Few scholars would have the chutzpah to write such a bold book. Robert Spengler presents an exemplary case of work that is not only rigorous but broadly accessible and truly interdisciplinary in scope. Fruit from the Sands reveals that the large-scale biological exchange epitomized by the Columbian Exchange had an ancient precursor, one previously unappreciated but equally crucial for the human diet. This book will change the way that readers see their food.”

Miranda Brown, University of Michigan
“To an archaeobotanist, the food on your table encodes the very history of humankind. From a single seed, Robert Spengler unfurls the millennial story of human and biological exchanges with exciting precision. This book is for mindful eaters and hungry thinkers alike.”

James A. Millward, Georgetown University
“Robert Spengler, a young archaeobotanist with much experience in the region, has produced an excellent guide to the plant foods and their history.”

Eugene Anderson, University of California
“Spengler takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic and dazzling journey: from the rice paddies of southern China, the stands of melon vendors at the bazaars in Samarkand, and the archaeological excavations in remote mountain regions of present-day Kazakhstan to the reader's own kitchen table. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Silk Road exchanges.”

Sören Stark, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU
“Spengler tells a fascinating tale of a culinary past that is just beginning to come into focus. Perhaps a follow-up volume could delve into what life was like for traders and herders on the Silk Road. For now, though, Spengler’s book provides lots of food for thought.”

Bruce Bower, journalist and popular science writer
“Fruits from the Sands is an excellent example of a comprehensive and entertaining historical and botanical review, providing an enjoyable and cognitive read for scientists, general public, students and policy makers. The people of ancient Central Asia are honoured as the main protagonists, dispersing cultivars and agricultural knowledge along trans-Eurasian exchange routes. This fresh view can be credited to the author.”

Mayke Wagner, German Archaeological Institute & Pavel E. Tarasov, Freie Universität Berlin
“Fruit from the Sands is an entertaining and thought provoking historical, botanical and archaeological review of a vast swathe of the Old World. It is accessible for specialists and the general public alike, and should be read by policy makers as well, with a mind to thinking about agricultural diversity and sustainability.”

Jennifer Bates, University of Pennsylvania
“Much has been written about the Columbian Exchange and the introduction of ‘exotic’ foodstuffs from the West to the rest of the world that resulted from the opening up of the Americas at the end of the 15th century – and rightly so. But in Europe, we are generally much more poorly aware of the influence on our cuisines of foodstuffs from the East. In Fruits from the Sands, Robert Spengler redresses that imbalance so that the food debt the West owes the East is rightly showcased and celebrated. Should anybody require a single sentence, sound-bite summary of the book, I offer this: 'Fruit from the Sands, where food meets forensics'.”

Nigel Chaffey, Bath Spa University, editor of Annals of Botany
"The volume is truly a mine of information. This book is a must for anybody interested in food, cultural diversity, archaeology, exchange networks and the impact of modern globalisation on food and cultural homogenization."

Marijke van der Veen, University of Leicester, UK
“As the author reconstructs the story of popular foods, we learn that apples originated not in Europe, but in Central Asia, an area where the author conducted extensive field research in archaeobotany.”

Caterina Agostini, Rutgers University
“Fruits from the Sands is an elegantly written and important book.”

Martin Jones, Cambridge University

Awards & Recognition

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Nature’s Greatest Success:
How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity

Coming Soon!

In Nature’s Greatest Success, Spengler picks up where Fruit from the Sands left off by unraveling the long, intertwined history of people and the flora and fauna that sustain them.

Through multiple case studies, Spengler reveals the interconnected paths that domestication takes, uncovering evidence for parallel evolutionary trends in the wild. He envisions the early fields of prehistoric farmers as isolated islands in which only a few plants and animals prospered. By thriving, these organisms developed to dominate the planet, and their trajectories can be traced millions of years back into the fossil record.

Nature’s Greatest Success articulates a compelling new understanding of our natural and constructed worlds. It’s currently in publication by the University of California Press.

Books by Robert Spengler

Fruit from the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat

“To an archaeobotanist, the food on your table encodes the very history of humankind. From a single seed, Robert Spengler unfurls the millennial story of human and biological exchanges with exciting precision. This book is for mindful eaters and hungry thinkers alike.”

“Robert Spengler, a young archaeobotanist with much experience in the region, has produced an excellent guide to the plant foods and their history.”

“Spengler tells a fascinating tale of a culinary past that is just beginning to come into focus. Perhaps a follow-up volume could delve into what life was like for traders and herders on the Silk Road. For now, though, Spengler’s book provides lots of food for thought.”

"The volume is truly a mine of information. This book is a must for anybody interested in food, cultural diversity, archaeology, exchange networks and the impact of modern globalisation on food and cultural homogenization."

“As the author reconstructs the story of popular foods, we learn that apples originated not in Europe, but in Central Asia, an area where the author conducted extensive field research in archaeobotany.”

“Fruits from the Sands is an elegantly written and important book.”

Awards & Recognition

Nature’s Greatest Success:How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity

Fruit from the Sands:
The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat

Nature’s Greatest Success:
How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity