Moving into the second section, Standage claims that sedentary (farming) communities with the ability to store food gave rise to economic and political inequality, and hence to government, social structure, laws, culture, and almost every aspect of life that humans possess today.
The theories of Thomas Malthus (that the world's growing population could not be supported by the agriculturally based food supply) are a recurring theme throughout this book.
In section four, Standage shows how two particular innovations of the 18th century (New World crops and replacement of wood with coal for fuel) increased agricultural productivity and made industrialization possible.
In the final section of the book, Standage discusses the Green Revolution, a breakthrough in farming technologies and techniques that occurred in the 1940s to roughly the 1970 which greatly increased crop yields.
Standage told an NPR interviewer that he thinks of food, not as the central motivating force of human history, but as "an invisible fork" that prods humankind.