Reddit mentions of An Edible History of Humanity

All three of these diets are loosely true for various areas and periods of human history.

1. Hunter gatherer societies did eat lots of meat and foraged plants. This has generally been better for human health (the archaeological record shows us that the adoption of agriculture coincided with larger, less healthy populations). However, frankly this idea ignores all the historical and environmental context of hunter-gatherer societies. The hunter-gatherer diet requires a small, stable population. It can't support larger populations. Anyway, the point is moot because we don't really know what the paleo diet was, and the hunter-gatherer diet is completely unsustainable on a large scale.
   
2. As far as raw vegan diets...not sure. Are you sure you described raw veganism correctly? I'm not very familiar with it. AFAIK ancient veganism has been sporadic and largely confined to Greek philosophers and India? Not terribly certain on this point.
   
3. Your descriptions are pretty vague, but #3 is especially vague. Which humans when? Potatoes and corn only existed in the New World until extremely recently in human history, though they were both extremely important to many Central and South American civilizations. I'm not so sure about rice but I don't think it was consumed outside of Asia for most of history?
   
   If you're really wondering who is right or wrong, I think what's important to take away here is that humans haven't had one diet throughout our evolutionary history. Different diets have been necessary/possible in different environments, and changed depending on population needs etc. I highly suggest reading An Edible History of Humanity if you really want to get into it (which, along with 1491, is my source for this response).
   
   Apologies if I've gotten any facts wrong.

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. A surprisingly fun read and interesting read.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage. Another fun read. Touches on some great topics, like the "which came first: beer or bread" debate, but doesn't go into topics as deeply as I would have liked.

I haven't read these two yet, but it's on my list:

Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner

An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage

That great river of books that sucks away my money says I should have a used hardback edition in about 10 days. I would not look for a book report for, oh, maybe 6 months or so. I'll repay the "favor" this way. A Short History of the World is perhaps bordering on fluff compared to what you recommended, but it is an overview that may lead to other research. Perhaps more interesting to me are a couple of offbeat ones by Tom Standage: A History of the World in 6 Glasses, and An Edible History of Humanity. They sorta slip interesting historical factoids into your brain without it seeming like your having to work at learning history.

An Edible History of Humanity might be up your alley. I quite enjoyed it, and it conveys food history in a cultural and economic sense.

I found out about it from this book An Edible History of Humanity