Book Review – Harvest For Hope
My book club decided to read Harvest for Hope by Jane Goodall recently and I was somewhat afraid it wouldn’t have too much new information for me that I didn’t already read about in Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, or Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. But I was surprised that there is still a lot about our current food environment that I don’t know. The book is actually only partially written by Jane Goodall, if you aren’t familiar with her, she is the woman famous for living with and studying chimpanzees in Africa. The book has two other contributing writers and at times it does read like it has multiple authors. The tone of the work is inconsistent and it doesn’t always flow together in a natural way, there are also things repeated in the book multiple times as if it is the first time they are mentioned.
The book has brief overviews on a lot of different interesting topics. I was actually glad I’d already read some of the other books on this subject because I felt at times like Harvest for Hope assumed you had a good understanding of things and brushed over the details on several of the topics. On the other hand, this book did introduce me to several topics I had not thought much about previously, one of which being the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our food today. While the book gave a pretty good overview of GMOs, it definitely left me wanting to find out more for myself.
Overall, I would start with other books if you haven’t read much on this subject, but if you have already read Omnviore’s Dilemma and others like it and want a brief overview on GMO’s, water quality, the impact of fishing on the environment or some of the other subjects she discusses, it might be worth picking up. The book also has a pretty extensive list of resources in the back that I found helpful to find out more information.
P. S. Sorry for the lack of posts this week, I was out of town all weekend and got back Sunday night. And now our baby has a cold and an ear infection!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 11:10 am and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
June 24th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Hi there!
I just discovered your blog recently and I have to say I that I really enjoyed reading your posts.
I haven't read any of the books mentioned but I definitely will.
I think I will start with Omnivore's Dilemma.
Thanks so much for the info and I definitely will be keeping up with your posts
June 24th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Hi Stephanie. Harvest for Hope was one of the first green books I read (a few years ago) and really raised my level of awareness. I found the shallow organic vs. deep organic explanation interesting – something I'd never heard of before. And the GMO section left me wanting to know more too. I started to read a book on GMOs from a more objective point of view – but it had far too many statistics and was hard to get through (in fact, I didn't).
June 25th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Hi Nazli, Thanks for the comment, and I'm glad you are enjoying our blog! It is very motivating to hear that new people out there are reading and liking what we have to say. Omnivore's Dilemma is a great place to start, unless you are by chance a vegetarian, then I'd start with either In Defense of Food or Animal Vegetable Miracle. Hope you enjoy them.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Hi Lyndsey, my husband is reading a book on GMOs right now, and I'll probably read it at some point after he is finished. I wonder if it's the same one or different, he did tell me it got kind of boring at times because there is a lot of government policy and law that it wades through. We did happen across a documentary that we haven't made it all the way through, but it talks about GMOs and is actually very informative and easy to understand (at least the hour or so we've watched). It is free on Hulu http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-foo…
June 25th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Hi Lyndsey, my husband is reading a book on GMOs right now, and I'll probably read it at some point after he is finished. I wonder if it's the same one or different, he did tell me it got kind of boring at times because there is a lot of government policy and law that it wades through. We did happen across a documentary that we haven't made it all the way through, but it talks about GMOs and is actually very informative and easy to understand (at least the hour or so we've watched). It is free on Hulu http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-foo…
June 25th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Hi Lyndsey, my husband is reading a book on GMOs right now, and I'll probably read it at some point after he is finished. I wonder if it's the same one or different, he did tell me it got kind of boring at times because there is a lot of government policy and law that it wades through. We did happen across a documentary that we haven't made it all the way through, but it talks about GMOs and is actually very informative and easy to understand (at least the hour or so we've watched). It is free on Hulu http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-foo…
June 26th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Thanks for that link. Unfortunately, not being in the US, I can't watch it.
The book I had started was Seeds for the Future: The Impact of Genetically Modified Crops on the Environment, by Jennifer A. Thomson
What's the one your husband is reading?
June 26th, 2009 at 1:40 am
That is such a bummer, I didn't know Hulu was only in the U.S. Well, the book my husband is reading is Eating in the Dark: America's Experiment with Genetically Engineered Food I'll have him write a review when he's done.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Harvest for Hope was also one of the first green eating books I read too, and I felt like it did give a pretty good overview of a lot of different problem areas. It also led me to CSA discovery since she lists good resources about them in the back of the book.
Hope Jake's feeling better! Leah also got the cold, but no ear infection thankfully.