America's love affair with beef goes back a long way. Once a small-scale enterprise characterized by family ranches and the local butcher, the beef market has morphed over its often violent history into a centralized corporate behemoth.
Author Joshua Specht traces the development of what he calls the cattle-beef complex, how it laid the groundwork for industrial agribusiness, and in the process radically changed the American diet. His book is Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America. The author visits with an overview.