1 comments about Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine.

1. Where our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine. Gary Paul Nabhan. Island Press: Washington, 2008. 214 pp., $24.95 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-1-59726-399-3, ISBN-10: 1-59726-399-0).
   
   Reviewed by Rafael J. Routson, Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
   
   In the Foodsteps of Giants:
   
   
   In his latest scientific and cultural pursuit, Where Our Food Comes From, Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan tracks the footsteps of Russian seed scientist Nikolay Vavilov across five continents, tracing the centers of diversity of domesticated food crops. These two scientists, whose work reaches into three centuries, embarked upon their quests in the context of a critical race, for Vavilov a pursuit against famine in his own country and then the snarls of the communist government, and for Dr. Nabhan a race against the irreversible loss of the world's genetic food crop diversity. The stories of each scientist, spaced fifty to seventy years apart in their journeys provide a multi-tiered study of past and current tapestries of seeds, fruits, roots, and tubers, as well as the farms, farmers, seed collectors, and seed protectors in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. This book emerges at a pivotal time in agricultural history, as economic and political factors severely threaten the future of food diversity and food security around the globe. In the times of Nikolay Vavilov, nation-wide famines propelled the young scientist to seek strains of crops from around the world to locate genes resistant to pests, disease, and unpredictable weather conditions. Dr. Nabhan follows the routes of the Russian scientist, tracing the centers of seed diversity, and noting shifts in the agricultural practices and traditions as well as the climatic, social, and political changes that have occurred in the previous half century, to place their combined searches in an international political ecology context, the findings not just for the benefit of one nation, but for the long-term health and survival of humanity and global agrobiodiversity.
   
   As a lifelong goal, the Russian seed scientist Nikolay Vavilov sought to locate the centers of origin and diversity of cultivated plants and to collect the entire range of seed diversity on five continents. Vavilov not only gathered the seeds, but he took extensive field notes regarding cultivation, harvesting, preparation, farm and topographical characteristics, the vernacular names, uses, and lore. He was conversant in fifteen languages and traced the linguistic and cultural histories of the seeds as well as the genetic origins. Nikolay Vavilov founded an extensive seed bank and research center, and was also a proponent of in-situ conservation, of seeds remaining in the hands of the farmers world-wide and continuing to evolve in the myriad environments of the farmers' fields. Vavilov noted diminishing seed diversity, a phenomenon later known as genetic erosion, and he promoted agrobiodiversity as a cornerstone of food security. The Russian scientist is both championed and criticized for his extensive seed collecting efforts, and he himself knew that collecting seeds from one country for use in another is never ethically or politically neutral (147).
   
   K. B. Wilson, in the introduction to Where our Food Comes From, writes that virtually no crops have been domesticated in modern times, and that science has failed to develop any new crops at all (xiv); even with the extensive work in hybridization and genetic engineering, the true breadth of seed diversity stems from millennia of isolated and interrelated farmers, tribes, and villages selecting and reproducing the crops that sustained, and still sustain all of humanity. The web of agrobiodiversity includes interactions among plant, animals, and cultures, a dynamic process of interchange and multi-directional influences. Wild relatives along field edges cross and backcross in reticulate evolution with domesticated plants and animals to increase pest tolerance and exchange the genes of survival necessary for specific ecosystems. These wild and domesticated biota shape and are shaped by cultures, blurring the boundaries between human and wild, revealing a millennial-length collective adaptation as a dynamic, living entity.
   
   Shifting economic and political tendencies and implementation of new agricultural and industrial technologies have triggered a dramatic decrease in seed diversity around the globe. These changes are hard to measure because early documentation of intricate farmer-field-environment interactions is virtually non-existent. The techniques of measuring genetic erosion emerged with the technology of creating genetic fingerprints for plant and animal varieties, but even this knowledge has come late in the process; much of the world's seed diversity has already disappeared. Funding pours in for biotechnology but not the protection and promotion of seed, cultural, and biological diversity. In the current cultural and political climate of starvation, international seed companies merging with pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical companies, seed patenting, and outcries for seed sovereignty, Dr. Nabhan follows a delicate and acute line, seeking the vein and pulse of these issues. Add to this a physical climate changing at a rate that is already forcing extinctions; even domesticated crops once grown at one altitude can no longer survive in the areas in which they evolved. Dr. Nabhan travels, not as a seed collector, but as a witness, using Vavilov's detailed and meticulous field notes to assess the changing nature of the world's agrobiodiversity.
   
   In his early explorations, Nikolay Vavilov developed and pursued the idea of a correlation among cradles of cultural and biological diversity. A greater richness in seed diversity, he hypothesized, could be found in mountainous areas more than in the fertile, agricultural plains. In the mountains, the climatic, elevation, topographic, vegetation, and soil gradients would foster isolated communities associated with greater language and species richness. Vavilov developed the term "nuclear centers of diversity" that later scientists such as Carl Sauer used when mapping the centers of origin for crop plants and Norman Myers and the World Wildlife Fund correlated later with biological "hotspots of biodiversity" (18). The nuclear centers mapped by Vavilov, cover only 1/5 of the world's landmass, but hold a high percentage of wild and domesticated species diversity. These places are also rich in indigenous knowledge and integrated practices of managing both the wild and the cultivated for maximal landscape potential. These centers of biodiversity now drive conservation planning and dictate the funneling of conservation dollars, however, scientists and policy makers have been slow to acknowledge the integrated nature of cultures in these centers of biodiversity. They have excluded many indigenous groups from the "protected" areas, aggravating an already declining state of cultural and biotic erosion.
   
   Vavilov began his international seed-questing travels in the Middle East and Asia in 1916. He was delayed, detained, and interrogated by local and international police suspect of his purpose. He survived political harassment and the inherent difficulties of traveling to the far reaches of the world by vehicle, train, mule, horse, camel, and caravan, crossing mountain ranges, fording rivers, and pursuing paths into the interiors of continents to find his coveted seeds. He first collected seeds in Persia, and continued into Kyrgystan, Mongolia, and Tajikistan, locating one of his nuclear centers in the Pamir Mountain Range in Central Asia. The Pamirs are third highest mountain landscape in the world, rising above five thousand meters, with cold desert valleys between glacier covered peaks. The extreme conditions, rugged landscape, and long history of human habitation have provided a natural laboratory for crop evolution and resilience (46). Vavilov took precise notes that can still be used to assess the climate and crop correlations, pressure readings for elevation, and he described geographic patterns in crop diversity. Dr. Nabhan, on his own journey to the Pamirs in 2003, documented a dynamic cultural and physical landscape. Dr. Nabhan writes that climate change is accelerating glacier melt in the high altitudes, leading to a changing upper limit of wheat, rye, oat, and potato crops and livestock grazing, while the cold rivers of glacier runoff decreased the temperatures in the valleys (56). Farmers struggle to move their crops higher up the mountains slopes, even planting orchards at unprecedented elevations with the foresight that the climate will be suitable by the time the trees are old enough to bear fruit. The traditional farmers have ever-dynamic practices, adapting to the variations presented by topography, climate, and social and political pressures, but the accelerated rate of climate change presents unprecedented challenges to the adaptation of food crops and farming methods.
   
   Changing political regimes, trade agreements, and national boundaries affect seed diversity in localities and the exchange of seeds between localities. Dr. Nabhan traced the Russian scientist's work to his own Nabhan family roots in the Levant in Greater Syria. Gary Paul Nabhan's great-grandfather emigrated from Lebanon following political turmoil in the 1860s when traditional agricultural crops were abandoned for silkworm production, leading to half a century of a food crisis, disease, and massive starvation. Both scientists arrived in the Fertile Crescent in the midst of political and social turmoil to seek wheat varieties in Lebanon, Syria, and Bekaa. They traveled to the Magreb oases to find date palm and desert crops across northern Africa where traditional crops were grown in polycultures near the artesian springs to form multi-tiered oases. The oases, once reached by camels, are now within easy access by virtue of paved roads, and though Dr. Nabhan documents that the perennial cover has not changed, the number of exotic varieties of fruits and nuts has increased while the local varieties of olives, dates, pomegranates, and figs, among many, have greatly decreased. In Ethiopia, the scientists pursued crop diversity in a region that holds the oldest known remnant of human civilization in the Great Rift Valley. Famine has swept the region, triggered by political upheaval, but the endemic races still abound, the diversity fostered by the topographical diversity and broad elevation ranges. Vavilov and Nabhan both found stunning polycultures of mixed grains and a tapestry of legumes, pasture grass, cereals, and vegetable patches. The mixed crops were and continue to be the keys to resilience in the region. A local organization known as the Ethiopian Plant Genetics Resource Center promotes the conservation of local use of crops, livestock, medicinal, and microbial diversity.
   
   Vavilov undertook his expedition to South America while political struggles in Russia plummeted the country again into a massive famine. Unfortunate weather conditions combined with the social collectivization of fields, which failed to increase yields for many reasons, lead to a mass starvation that took the lives of 2.5-4.8 million peasants. Vavilov found in the South American rain forests co-managed ecosystems, now termed Anthropogenic forests, as indigenous tribes shaped the spatial and temporal dynamics of their landscape. The rainforests faced then and continue to experience extensive destruction, and the indigenous people are forced to leave or flee deeper into the forests; the entire system is subject to the needs of a growing population and demands of political structures within and among countries. After his journey to the rainforests, Vavilov faced the end of his own career and life as well: Stalin was growing increasingly discontent with a scientist and scientific pursuit he considered to be frivolous and incapable of pacifying the starving populous. In 1940 he had Vavilov arrested and imprisoned, a scapegoat on which he could place the blame of the millions of people dying of starvation. Who would live and who would die brings to the forefront a story of seeds and their passionate collectors and protectors, but the life of the Russian seed scientist holds a critical place in the larger struggles and story of global food crop, culture, and biological diversity.
   
   The fate of agricultural diversity lies intimately linked to the chaotic politics that refuse to acknowledge the existence or importance of the genetic diversity that still prevails in seed banks and farmers' fields. Even as the necessity of protecting seed diversity has gained recognition, complex politics surround issues of in-situ and ex-situ conservation. The rise of industrial agriculture depends on the seed diversity developed in subsistence agriculture through millennia. The new economic and industrial systems, while promoting a few selected and manipulated varieties around the world, are at the same time destroying the base on which they depend for survival. Transnational corporations now have collections of patented seeds, gathered from subsistence villages, that they manipulate and sell back to the villagers with the requisite fertilizers. "Developed" nations depend on these under developed nations for diversity, but the farmers are not compensated and often marginalized in the process. Seed banks, ex-situ, or off-site repositories of agricultural diversity, are a flawed and insufficient strategy; seeds die in storage, become contaminated during grow-outs, and lose their place in the hands of cultures and the dynamic process of micro-evolution to specific environments. Most seed banks do not have ensured long-term financial support, nor have duplicate specimens of their seeds. Most farmers do not have access to the seeds held within, though many transnational seed companies do have access. In-situ conservation or on-site conservation keeps the seeds in the hands of the farmers to be part of the on-going selection and evolution process, but remains vulnerable to climate changes, shifting politics ad economies, trade agreements, transnational corporations, floods, famines, and war. Seed sovereignty, a grassroots movement to cling to in-situ conservation of local varieties has gained global momentum, and community organizations such as Parque de La Papa in Peru help keep seeds and farmers linked in living agrobiodiversity systems. Dr. Nabhan and Vavilov both pursued the far reaches of crop diversity, working to promote both in-situ and ex-situ conservation, but the call still persists and their voices continue to shout in the hurricane of power and money and global forward movement.
   
   Dr. Nabhan writes a story that both educates and challenges the reader; he brings to light the work of a prominent though largely forgotten crop scientist, while threading the pertinent issues, past and present that transform all regions of the globe. Within this framework, Where our Food Comes From reaches to the past to stimulate, motivate, and inspire its readers to work toward the conservation of cultural and food crop diversity. He leads us into remote regions and gives just enough of a flavor for the reader to realize the extensive knowledge and genetic diversity both present within and disappearing from every ecosystem and landscape. Local and regional movements have the most potential to save, promote, and support the genetic diversity harbored within landscapes and ensure a future for humanity. Dr. Nabhan writes of food democracy, and the rights of all individuals to have choices in access, production, transportation, and availability of their food, but like all democracies, this depends on the education and awareness of the people within and the power of the rural and underprivileged to have a say in politics. Agricultural and wild lands, the terms not mutually exclusive, are succumbing to urban development at a rapid pace globally. The reader feels the urgency of this text, of the haunting voices of those who have died working to promote and save genetic diversity, and the scale of the challenge faced now by those who choose to be conscious of the forces at work and the undertake their own journeys in promoting global food security and food crop, cultural and biological diversity.
   
   
   Key Words: Agrobiodiversity, Vavilov, Centers of diversity.

5 comments about The Demon in the Freezer.

1. The author of the international bestseller 'The Hot Zone' returns to familiar ground; this time he is out to scare us with smallpox. We get to know the history of the disease, man's desperate but eventually successful battle against the lethal disease, and also man's attempt to recreate the illness in a more potent form to be used as a weapon in bioterrorism.
   
   Engaging in its authentic scares and highly informative, this book tells us a story which is joyously uplifting in its account of humanity's proudest moments as it succeeded after years of tireless labour in ridding the world of a menace that had plagued mankind from time immemorial. But the story is also depressingly alarming when we learn of the evil that lurks in the heart of men: the doctors eradicated the world of smallpox but could not uproot the virus from the hearts of people who recreated a much lethal version of the disease for biowarfare.



2. Now this is the way to write a technical non-fiction book. It is a thriller, it is interesting, it is educational, and it is very, very frightening. Every human being that can read should buy this book and read it through. Great job, Mr Preston!



3. This book is a bold statement about the state of our world. Smallpox and anthrax are the new weapons of choice for anyone who wants to infect large populations around the world.
   It's a great book and everyone should read it just to know what's out there.



4. This quote inherits a new sense of forboding when considering the history of smallpox, its eradication and the threat it currently presents us today. Richard Preston has managed to write my favorite kind of book with Demon in the Freezer: an informative but fascinating non-fiction page turner that is accessible by anyone with an inherent sense of curiosity.
   
   Definite five stars.



5. Feel like being angry and disturbed? Give this a read. The Hot Zone was a great read but not nearly as scary as this book which shows just how evil mankind truly is. I keep asking myself why the Soviets would ever think that these viruses and antibiotic resistant bacteriums could be useful in defense of their nation. With modern transporation the entire world is in big trouble when this stuff gets out. Smallpox is bad enough on its own but it takes a very sick mind to weaponize it. What a world we are raising our children in- this is disturbing stuff.

5 comments about The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics).

1. The Logic of Scientific Discovery is in my view Karl Popper's finest work. When I studied science I was amazed at the insight Popper had into the scientific method of inquiry, and I admired his refusal to accept intellectual garbage.
   
   While Popper has come under strong attack from both scientists and philosophers for several shortcomings in his work, in my view Popper has framed one of the most important studies of scientific knowledge and how it is gained, and the difference between science and non-science.
   
   I agree with Popper's argument that the key feature of scientific theories is that they are 'falsifiable.' By this Popper simply meant that a scientific theory, even if beautiful, can be shown wrong by empirical observation. While this account is no doubt oversimplified and leaves out the key social and historical dimensions to science (which thinkers such as Kuhn addressed later on), this principle remains central to science; as Feynman said, 'If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.' The fallibility of science in Popper's view was the key to its strength, in contrast to pseudo-sciences such as Marxism and Freudian psychology, which while containing elements of truth, set themselves up as infallible truths and glossed over things which contradicted the belief system.
   
   Popper also wrote many other philosophical works, including an important study of the difference between democratic political societies and ones ruled by totalitarian ideaology. However, he rightly deserves fame as one of the most important 20th century philosophers of science.



2. I have to ask myself, "What is the basis for my scientific knowledge?" On a daily basis, as I am a chemist. I have often been struck by arguments for "induction" as lacking credibility, because how can one argue of probabilities with an unknown sample size? Popper argues that a proposing scientific hypothesis is an inductive act, but it is a creative act not a logical one, but that scientific knowledge is dedective.
   
   I agree with him. The nature of science is such that one must put for statements about how the world works and test them. A scientist should always try to find a way of proving himself or herself wrong. If the predictions of the test are shown to be false, then the hypothesis must be false. That is the basis of scientific knowledge. The rest, the best theories we have are just "working models" and we can never justify why they work. They're simply our best working models now.
   
   
   I don't find Popper's argument disheartening. Popper points out that we don't have to justify our search for explanations of the world, because they may do us benefit (if we happened to live in a world with stable physical laws, for instance).
   
   I think many scientists would fundamentally agree that the laws of nature can never really be proven. They can't, but they speak volumes about what is relevant to us as a species (which is why Popper's argument that "induction" is creative is so interesting). All Popper asks of a scientific hypothesis is that it can, in principle, be demonstrated false by experience.
   
   This is by far one of the most interesting and (I feel) important books I've ever read.



3. Not exactly light reading, but a great reference work, and a clear expostion of Popper's Falsificationism. This methodology is widely regarded as the leading tool for demarcating between science and non-science or pseudo-science.



4. This book is essential reading for every undergrad. Empiricism should be taken to heart by anyone engaged in social or natural sciences. Shamefully, it tends to be forgotten in both, in favor of a pseudo-science of studying "concepts" or "models" instead of facts.
   
   Social sciences are behavioral. They study human behavior, and therefore are purely empirical. Natural sciences are observational and experimental, and therefore also empirical. Yet, even some geologists (in my experience) tend to forget to examine the world as it is and instead fall back lazily on a fake intellectualism of model-driven thinking.



5. Completed some time after he had immigrated to New Zealand upon fleeing Nazi Germany, this, one of Popper's most important and well-known works, is where he first introduces his solution to the problem of induction. According to Popper, scientific theories can never be proven; they can only be tested and confirmed or "falsified." In short, theories are mere hunches: more or less guided speculation, that must undergo continuous and rigorous testing and are subject to being overthrown at any time, including even after they have been rigorously tested. Popper's main point is that theories, are never completely proven, whether tested or not, they must remain available to falsification.
   
   The Logic of Scientific Discovery was thus aimed primarily at pseudo-science and the pseudo-scientist (or at least at what Popper saw as the dangers of pseudo-science). Eventually the attack developed here became a full-scale broadside against the technique and process of inductive reasoning and of all scientific progress and theorizing that had been advanced on the basis of such reasoning.
   
   Popper contends here (as does Hume and his other fellow Logical Positivists) that induction -- and presumably this includes mathematical induction, which many believe to be on a somewhat sounder footing than ordinary inductive reasoning -- was not logical. Among those that Popper considered a practicing pseudo-scientist, was none other than the great Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic theories of consciousness, which Popper considered to be dangerous pseudo-science.
   
   Before this book was written, the best defense against the logical hole in induction was that put forth by the other Logical Positivists. They had rested their hat on a technique they coined as the "Principle of Verification," which was designed consciously as a temporary stopgap to close the logical hole that they all knew existed in inductive reasoning. Here Popper analyzes this principle and concludes that even though it is indeed a sounder form of induction, it remains induction no less: that is, it too is not logical. The "Principle of Verification" which required that theories be capable of passing rigorously designed scientific tests in Popper's eyes was just a halfway house between "pure induction" and Popper's more stringent criterion introduced for the first time in this book called the "Principle of "Falsification." Falsification turned the "Principle of Verification" on its head, by requiring that every proposition be falsifiable, and thus logical through the backdoor of being forever open to testing.
   
   For the better part of four decades, Popper's principle of falsification reigned supreme in science, but now cracks have begun to develop, and many scientists, including some of his fellow logical positivists are beginning to give inductive reasoning and the Principle of Verification a second look. Despite these emerging reconsiderations of Popper's work, this book (which is dense and heavy going, and difficult to read in most of the middle parts), and his principle of falsification, Popper has nevertheless assured himself a well-deserved place in the annals of the history of the philosophy of science.
   
   Five Stars

5 comments about The Cosmic Serpent.

1. Parts of this book were really interesting, and others were a bit tedious. Overall, the author's theory that Shamans are "seeing and learning" from plant DNA (that looks like snakes/serpents to them, hence the inordinate amount of ancient paintings that depict snakes) is certainly counter to conventional Western thought.
   
   If you enjoy learning about alternative ideas, you'll enjoy this book. Who knows, it may be generally accurate -- Western science certainly can't explain the knowledge native Shamans have acquired.



2. Apparently countless civilizations have recognized the serpent or other double-helix like shapes as of primal importance, and consumption of hallucogenic drugs induces similar visions. Narby has taken this information and declared that humans are, and always have been, somehow aware of the DNA that underlies our existence. He also believes that DNA has intentions, can communicate with us, and it not of this world (he does not believe in natural selection, etc). As a geneticist with an interest in neurobiology and consciousness myself, I am aware that he has butchered much of the science he presents (for example, claiming that the circularity of natural selection makes it untestable). However he writes well, and I enjoyed reading about the anthropology (which appears well documented to my admittedly inexpert eye) that led him to derive this new mythology. I certainly don't agree with his conclusions, but I appreciate his intellectual creativity and sense of discovery.



3. I found the book to be well researched with over 90 pages of notes, indexes, and bibliography to support the 162 pages of the author's perspective and one possibility of how all life is interconnected. Myth or truth? Not easily answered because I don't think one could ever know now that most every inch of the planet has been explored and the primitive cultures "found" have been affected in too many ways. What impressed upon me most was that there is something profound that we can learn from studying and understanding these ancient ways. An interesting read.



4. I'm surprised that no one before me has mentioned how poorly written this book is. It sounds like it was written by an eighth grader with no imagination. For somone who is discussing hallucinations, he would have done well to have been more colorul in his writing. It reads like a technical brochure. Half the things he talks about are of no consequence to the point he's trying to make.



5. I've always been interested in science, religion, and ancient cultures as well as neurology and the general workings of nature. Recently I've been doing a lot of research on the pineal gland, DMT, enlightenment, and Mayan/Aztec culture. A friend gave me this book with a little note that said "food for thought" and he was dead on. I was very surprised to see the majority of the above mentioned subjects discussed in a cohesive, plausible, and interesting way in this book. Narby has some outstanding ideas that lead to many unanswered questions (some of which we will probably never know the answers to) and I thoroughly enjoyed the read. Yea, he's not the best author in the world, but he does a good job and I didn't find myself bored at any point. I wish he'd gone into further detail describing his and others' hallucinogenic experiences and I honestly can't believe that he didn't go for a second try. If I had the chance to experience DMT in it's natural setting like he did, I'd definitely do it as many times as I could. That's beside the point, though. This is a very easy read. I sat down today and read the whole book in one sitting. The bulk of it is only 162 pages, but Narby provides a wealth of references to continue your search if you so desire. About half of the pages are reference materials to further your studies of any of the subjects you find in the book. I'm impressed with his theory and I hope he's right. I'm not sure if it changes anything for us at this stage, but it's a very powerful idea that has life changing potential. I recommend the read, even if you aren't into this sort of thing, just to get your brain working on something you probably wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

4 comments about The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler.

1. The author has written a well researched and readable account of the
   early 20th century work of Carl Bosch and Fritz Haber, who set in place
   modern nitrogen fixation methods. The author has done a good job of simplifying the technical details for the average reader.
   As an academic chemist, I feel compelled to quibble a little with some of the details, none of which should bother most readers.
   The author states(chapter 12) that nitric acid could not be made from ammonia, but could be made from cyanamide( this is in 1914). He goes on to say that Bosch built a factory to produce sodium nitrate from ammonia. This is confusing on several grounds. The presently used production of nitric acid proceeds through the catalytic oxidation of ammonia. The book mentions Bosch having a catalyst.Synthetic sodium nitrate would be produced from nitric acid. As for cyanamide, it is a source of ammonia-
   therefore it is hard to understand how nitric acid could be prepared from
   cyanamide, but not from ammonia, as the author suggests.
   The book has a very extensive bibliography, and perhaps I can solve all these questions by recourse to the original sources. None of this makes much difference for the main points of the book.
   I have read quite a bit on this general area, and this is one of the best books I have found on Haber and Bosch, and I found it interesting and provocative.
   I found one puzzling entry in the bibliography which may have been included in error : a biography of Whistler, which as far as I can tell is not referenced anywhere else in the book.



2. This is a fabulous true tale exceptionally well told by Thomas Hager. History changing events in Latin America and Europe are made palpable, interesting, and are told in a way that makes you care very intensely about the protagonists involved. Especially fascinating is the telling of the history of contesting in Peru and Chile over the raw materials for nitrogen fertilizer. Get this book now and I guarantee you won't put it down and will learn much about world history and how it could have been quite different. I can't say enough good things. Just get the book now. Gee, it almost sounds like I know the author, or stand to gain somehow. I don't and just want to share this book with the world.
   
   John Lavender



3. This book is an excellent history of the people and times surrounding one of the greatest inventions of mankind, artificial nitrogen fixation. Mr Hager makes the events and personalities come alive. He writes a lucid and penetrating account of the Haber Bosch process, which stands as almost the single force which has prevented mass starvation in the 20th and 21st centuries. This book would make an excellent holiday gift for that hard to buy for techie on your list.



4. This centers on the Haber-Bosch process which has so much influence to the current day.
   Super relevant.

5 comments about Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History).

1. This is not about making cookies or cooking a thanksgiving turkey in time. This book is about the chemical subtleties that make a good dish a great dish. The chemistry is fairly easy while the cooking is a lot harder here.
   It isn't about healthy foods (even if there are some good healthy cooking hints) and it isn't about quick cooking (even if there are some interesting suggestions about how, for example, render the microwaved food better tasting).
   The two biggest shortcomings in my opinion are a truly lame index and too much quoting from the old masters. Even if I prefer Italian cooking, I can forgive his French cooking slant.
   I consider the shortcomings negligible, and thus I stick to 5 stars.



2. In culinary science, dominated by Harold McGee's lucid and entertaining "On Food and Cooking," a new book has to deliver a lot. "Kitchen Mysteries" does not quite measure up. Much of the problem is the translation from French: I can HEAR the author talking in French, since the translator has kept the idiomatic elegant French constructions that sound so awkward and rambling in English. The content is interesting and has novelty, such as making duck a l'orange by injecting Cointreau into the thighs before you microwave them. Quel horreur!



3. The first things French chemist and gastronomist This clarifies are the terms gourmand and gourmet. A gourmand is not a glutton. A gourmand is a gourmet. A gourmet is actually a connoisseur of wine. Got that? Good. Cause it doesn't get any easier.
   
   This' eye-opening book is all about molecules and atoms in motion and what things like heat, moisture, acid and fat do to transform them into succulent meals - or into fallen soufflés, tasteless pot roasts, and rubbery eggs.
   
   After a brief overview concerning the physiology of taste and the basics of saucepan chemistry, This concentrates on various common ingredients and techniques - milk, eggs, sugar, wine, steaming, braising, frying, sauces, salads, pastry - to name a few. We know that oil and water do not mix, and that microwaved beef is gray and unappetizing. This explains why.
   
   He then goes on to show us how to whip up the perfect hollandaise or mayonnaise, and how to keep the succulence in beef. While the microwave plays no part in this last, This is enthusiastic about this appliance and shows us how to use it properly for making caramel, reheating vegetables and - producing a Cointreau-infused duck a l'orange!
   
   This is witty and humorous and sprinkles his clear and effervescent prose with bons mots from such brilliants as Escoffier, Harold McGee and the great Brillat-Savarin. Readers (like me) whose eyes glaze over at the very mention of electrons may find themselves becoming entranced by This' graceful descriptions of essential chemical reactions.
   
   He explains when and why to salt and answers numerous questions, i.e., why soup cools when you blow on it, why babies shouldn't eat sausage, why use so much oil for deep-frying.
   
   Crisply organized, This' compact volume ends with a glossary of cooking and chemistry terms. The first entry is:
   
   "AAAH: The cry of delight guests utter when the first dish arrives. The sleight of hand responsible for the most beautiful `aaahs' cannot be explained in terms of physical chemistry."
   
   Enjoy.



4. This book contains what the title says it does, however it is not compehensive like On food and Cooking, it is much smaller. This books strengths are its small size, and the information is easy to apply.
   
   The book has been translated from French poorly. It is very awkward English, where I constantly found myself re-reading things.



5. This book is entertaining and full of interesting anecdotes and culinary notes. The science is described with lively enthusiasm, but it is often imprecise or simply wrong. Some of it may be an artifact of the translation, but one is left hoping that the next edition is read by a chemist and a physicist before publication. Beware quoting this book in an educated company, or on your final exam!

5 comments about The Complete Encyclopedia Of Chickens.

1. This is one of the better chicken books I have seen. Informative and succinct. Beautifully illustrated.



2. Wow - I wish every chicken book had so much information for so little money! I have long looked for a book that has identifying photos of various breeds, and this one is great! (Except they didn't mention my beloved Dominiques!). While it should not be your ONLY poultry book, it should absolutely be ONE of them! Don't forget to hug your chickens today!



3. The Encyclopedia of Chickens (Hardbound Version) is a quality book through and through. The photography is the best I've seen in a chicken book.
   
   The breeds are well presented visually, often as chicks, poults and adults. Which takes the mystery out of wondering what they should look like young or what they will look like when mature.
   
   The write ups are very helpful and go into often neglected details such as individual breed mannerisms and behavior traits. Though each chicken is individual in temperment, breeds are pre-disposed and this book reveals that expertly.
   
   Get this book while you can, I'm unhappy that they are not going to re-print such an obviously wonderful and important book which should be shared by every chicken nut.
   
   I can't say enough about it, I just love it.
   
   FredsFineFowl



4. I gave this 4 stars because I don't think calling it the Complete Encyclopedia of Chickens is accurate. It is very informative, but certainly not complete. It does cover the basics & does offer detail but not in depth. It's a hard cover book with full color glossy pages. The photos are very good & it is a very attractive book to have. It will not answer all you questions regarding chickens though. You will need to purchase another book for that. Storey's guide to Chickens is very good. But if you just want a little reading material & an attractive book to boot, then this is a book worth buying.



5. This book provides detailed descriptions of the full range of chickens available in Europe. Photography is great, too. I really enjoyed it and have re-read it many times.
   
   For American readers, I think Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds (a large scale paperback) may be more useful, since it covers only the APA breeds available in the United States. But for the chicken fanatic, this is still a very enjoyable read. The chicken care info at the beginning of the book is nice, and it is interesting to read a European perspective, too.
   
   This is also a very sturdy, well-bound volume-- the sort of book that will last forever.

5 comments about Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds.

1. Overall just an okay book; more informative books are available about poultry breeds & avian species; nice photographs, however, this book would have been much better & more handy if it were published as a small 6" x 8" size field-guide; having made this such a big & bulky book was unnessary & a distractor for practical use of this publication!



2. I am writing a fiction book about chickens. After reviewing several reference books from the library, this one stands alone as the MUST HAVE. I'm ordering a copy for myself for more research to finish the manuscript and for the sheer pleasure of reading about these fascinating species.



3. This is such a great book, I was surprised at how beautiful and bright the pictures were! There are many many breeds in here as well as quite a few ducks/gees & turkeys. I wish there were a few more pages of pheasant (there is only 1) but that's not why I bought the book anyway :) If I had one complaint it's that I wish they had out a photo of the eggs laid by each breed along with thier pictures, then it would be perfect!



4. Excellent breed descriptions with mutiple pictures of most to show color variations. Tells you who's on the endangered list and how many eggs to expect over a year. Which are the best broodys and which won't sit at all. Wish I'd had this before I began my backyard flock.



5. What a great book! I am a 4-H Poultry advisor and am often looking for information regarding breeds, patterns, standards, etc. This book was not only gorgeous to look at, it is filled with wonderful information. I just love it.

5 comments about Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, And Fair.

1. Carlo Petrini gave a lecture at NCSU in Raleigh earlier this year. His talk was in Italian, but his ideas were universal: if we want happiness and peace, we're going to have to change the way we eat.
   
   The book is fantastic. It is beautifully written, powerful, and balances scientific data and understanding with cultural histories and sensible aestheics. His proposal of a new branch of science, gastronomy, is as revolutionary as Freud's proposal to study the human psyche or David Kelley's efforts to study design as a science.
   
   This book is The Inconvenient Truth for those who eat. But it is also a far more optimistic book, for the solution to the problem of industrial agriculture is to seek out good food, to meet and learn about the farms and farmers who grow it, and the reward is pleasure.
   
   The Introduction by Alice Waters is, like the food at Chez Panisse, a sensual as well as a sensible delight.
   
   This is a great book to buy, read, and then share with others, all around the world.



2. More than a reaction to Fast Food's arrival in Italy, Slow Food
   has evolved into a global movement encompassing many different actions to improve what we all taste and eat.
   It's not about eating well in the privileged, Michelin-starred table sense. It's about recognizing everyone's barriers to eating well and judging the quality of our food on three levels, asking whether it is good, clean and fair. (The book's original title is just that: Buono, pulito e Giusto).
   The movement's founder wrote this book to set out a new definition of gastronomy, enumerating some of the issues facing our food supply and helping to turn a thinking eater to positive action.
   Beautifully translated, Slow Food Nation is a cogent & readable introduction to what Slow Food is about. Highly recommended!



3. Carlo Petrini has been attempting to preserve a more traditional view of food for a long time, this book lays out his current thinking in a clear and concise layering of understanding food in culture (gastronomy), understanding quality (good, clean, fair food), and the tools to put these ideas to work in the world going forward.
   As we reconstitute a food culture based on transparency and quality in the USA and hopefully across the globe, this book provides key ideas related to respect for diversity of food products, respect for food in culture, and respect for the work associated with food that can serve to guide us. This book made me think and laugh, and I recommend it highly.



4. Let me start off by stating that I agree with the essential concept of this book. I think we should all try to slow down, buy locally grown, fresh, seasonal food and cook a few meals from scratch. However, while reading the book something kept striking me as odd. The wording seemed charged, like a propaganda piece meant to demonize modern agriculture and our fast paced society, though Mr. Petrini repeatedly admits that a return to subsistence agriculture could not possibly support the current world population. I thought that maybe it was just the translation then on page 187 I came across the statement, "We do not need the accumulation of wealth, but its redistribution..." Then I realized, it is meant to be bit of a propaganda piece which explains the rhetoric. And, I have to wonder about the first example in the book, the traditional peppers of Asti that are no longer grown in Asti. Peppers are a new world crop and could not have been in Italy much before 1500. Here in America that might seem historic, but in the land of the Roman Empire that is barely out of adolesence. I guess it is okay to pick and choose which local, traditional foods one chooses to wax rhapsodically about.



5. This was slow, slow reading. Lots of technical information which I am just too tired to digest. Maybe something was lost in the translation? I did not even finish this book and have not recommended it to anyone--quite the opposite.

5 comments about The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture.

1. Just simply blowed away by negative reviews of this book. I grew up on a small farm when you could still make a living there. Our rural community was much closer, neighborly, trusting, and thick with the smells, sounds and sights of country living. I left home at 18 traveling the world in our military and ran from that "work ethic and way of life" on the farm. Lived in some of this worlds largest cities discovering first hand all the reasons why country living was "paradise on earth."
   Oh, I've heard all the urban preachers and their reasons why they love the city. I lived it!!!!!
   Is there any wonder why higher income people are moving into rural america! Land prices are thru the roof, they come here with their city mind, mouth and motivations. Why? Because they want a view and try to escape all those negative things in the city. Not to mention raise their kids in a small coummunity in hopes of everyone and everything turning out ok. They don't understand farming communities, our culture, our history nor our way of life.
   Ah! We are free! But wait, they come here and destroy our pastoral settings and fill the land with strip malls, fast food joints, quick marts and infrastructure that makes it "country no more."
   If any farmer holds out in this "developers dream of a jauggernaut" these new "country folk" start raising cain about the country sights, smell and sounds and want the farmer gone.
   Wendell is right on in this book. Oh sure there are bits and pieces of his opinion that rub some liberal wrong. But hey I'm sure a few conservatives cried foul too.
   Open up your mind and heart. Look at the facts. Can you trust corporate america? Big brother? Individual selfishness and greed? A bank director and his real estate developer friend once told me that they had joined forces with our county commissioners and planning commission community and preach their "farming is dead lets split up the land and develope the farms" gospel. If they build people will come! Hmm, sounds like a movie I once saw. They are building and people are coming.
   Reality of wendell's book tells it like it is. There has been a movement (I like the word conspiracy better but that will alienate a few) to industrialize american agriculture since 1940's. The corporate machine and its disciples have forclosed on many family farms, driven off the "inefficient", destroyed many lives, all in the name of progress!!!!!!
   It is all about just a select few industrial size farmers doing business as corporations, corporate chemical company profits off corporate farmers, college/universities gifted $$$millions of dollars to report and publish thru sound science (you don't believe that do you?) the wonderful benefits of more food with less land, by less farmers and healthier for you. And oh yes, our environment will be cleaner because splicing plant genes with chemical compounds and breeding new GMO (genetically modified organisms)foods means the farmer uses less chemicals (is that what the chemical company wants to do, put itself out of business for the sake of humanity? -- remember a portion of your 401k is tied to that companies performance and if they don't do well, neither will you) Roundup Ready Corn/beans/cotton/wheat is here. Spray roundup on your lawn and it does what? Dies!! Put a teaspoon of pure roundup in your coffee each morning and stir, how long before you may come up with cancer or some other ailment? No! Corporate America and our Universities have managed to fill our food pipeline with RR products for years and you consume a portion of it everytime you dine. Just a few steady PPM on a weekly basis, you'll be fine and live to a ripe old age?
   Thanks Wendell for preaching the TRUTH!!!!!!



2. Wendell Berry's writings have to be the most to-the-point, profound and real about life in rural America, how it used to be, how it might still be, but how often it is not. 'The Unsettling of America' encapsulates this all with a strong and real writing style and which tells the truth about our current way of living.
   
   I would recommend this book to all readers, country and city dwellers alike, as it is so telling and exposing of the mess we have made of our landscape, the reasons why, and how we might actually return it to being more vibrant and real.
   
   I would also recommend reading "Against the Machine" by Nicols Fox, recently published, which goes into more detail about the destruction of people's lives by the 'machinery' of the system in which we live, and how we might stop this also.



3. I grew up in Clarksville, TN, on the border with Guthrie, KY. Up the road not too far is Port Royal, KY, where one of the greatest living Americans still resides. He has lived there as long as I have been alive, and I am now over 30, but I had never heard of Wendell Berry until I had passed my thirtieth year. Were it not for the incomparable radio program "Unwelcome Guests", I may never have heard of him. It is a testament to the failure of our economy, education system, and culture, and it is why no thinking American doubts we are nearing a tragic and historic collapse; we are sliding fast down a snow-packed slope like a child on a greased sled. Our only short-term destiny is to smack into a tree.
   
   "The Unsettling of America" is nearly as old as I am, and it is as alive and timely as the day it was written. Probably even more so, since its remedies are the salves for our national malady, and they need an even more urgent prescription and application today than they did 30 years ago. Berry not only succinctly and brilliantly describes how we lost our small farmers, he astutely ties that loss to the loss of culture, belonging, responsibility, community, and character we all feel and mourn in our modern lives, even if we don't understand or fully comprehend that empty feeling. It is, after all, called agri-CULTURE because the land is tied intimately with culture, and to convert agriculture into agribusiness is to divorce people from nature, from a responsibility towards nature, and from an understanding of her cycles and patterns, without which, we are incomplete; it is to convert all of us from nurturers into usurpers and exploiters, as Berry explains throughout.
   
   So, this is not just a book about the loss of the small farmer. It is a book about our loss of liberty, independence, personal satisfaction, wealth, pride, mystery, and community. The way Berry weds these losses together throughout the book is a completely compelling. Berry's clean, beautiful, crystal clear prose moves deliberately, with a purposeful trajectory, and it effortlessly maintains a palpable weight of authority that can only be derived from real wisdom. He is a voice at once profoundly conservative and astutely liberal, or, in short, a real prophetic voice.
   
   "The Unsettling of America" is indeed wise, and it was indeed prophetic. The dangerous excesses he foresaw 30 years ago have come to pass in ever accelerating fashion. His remedies absolutely essential for the preservation of America, and for that matter, the world. Everyone should read this book and read Wendell Berry in general. Should we carry on our culture after we smack that tree (we might, after all, break our necks), Wendell Berry will be remembered when Polk, Buchanan, Clinton, and Bush are long, long forgotten, or so we should all hope.



4. So many things talked about in this book have happened. There's things he talks of that seem unbelievable...but years ago he said there would be dairy farms here and beef farms there and the diverse farms would give way to specialization. That has happened. There's a good many points in this book that presents his views - and that of many Americans - straight up. Not everyone will agree. There are companies who say it's safe to use their chemical or it's only the other guy who's careless. Country and farms are disappearing today at a rate that most don't even realize. When it's all paved over or subdivided...reread this book.



5. Wendell Berry says everything I feel and everything I have thought since I was a child growing up in S. Calif. watching the beautiful land be consumed ruthlessly by development. There is something wrong with todays ways, and I can't put it to words, but thankfully Wendell can! I wish I could get this book into everyones home and read by all. Though you do sense the sadness of the loss of all that is of real value, you also sense the hope of what our future will be like, after the oil. We will have to return to this eventually, or we will become extinct. Well done Wendell, I will be looking for your other works.