Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane GoodallMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I want to preface this by saying that I'm a huge admirer of Jane Goodall as a person and as an activist. I'm also heavily invested in the idea that the re-examination of our societal relationship to food production is vitally important to individual and environmental health. Having said that, this book was a huge disappointment. I kept reading it, hoping it got better or more useful, and it didn't. Ms. Goodall is an incredibly admirable person who clearly has a lot to say on the subject, but the way she says it in this book is just a hot mess. She goes on irrelevant anecdotal tangents in every single chapter and, as many other reviewers have mentioned, she repeats herself continually. I felt like I read eight or nine entreaties to eat organically or buy at farmer's markets. We get it. These things are good, but did anyone picking up this book not already know this?
Furthermore, for such an acclaimed scientist, Goodall provides painfully little science to back up her claim. Despite quoting statistics and making dire ecological and biological predictions on nearly every page, her bibliography is non-existent. Worse still, a lot of her proclamations bear the rhetorical mark of people who have no scientific basis at all. There are many "It seems..." or "Some say" or "Experts think..." attached to extremely serious and debatable claims. She actually contradicts herself several times, initially saying that world hunger isn't owed to the fact that there isn't enough food, but due largely to government corruption in very poor countries; later she states that world hunger is escalating (no citation provided) because "experts say" (sans citation) that the world can't produce enough food.
Goodall also consistently presents her personal speculation as fact throughout the book; for example, she has had anecdotal experience with children preferring organic produce over nonorganic varieties of the same produce, so "it would seem" that children may be able to sense how harmful pesticides are. I'm not saying I disagree with the claim that pesticides are to be avoided - I don't disagree - but this is just sloppy for a well-respected scientist. I actually felt secondhand embarrassment for her at several points.
The last few chapters were where things got really painful. They're basically a plug for her Jane Goodall Institute and her personal political agendas. Example #1: she believes ALL governments need to "take steps" [none specified] to reduce the population. Example #2: she goes on a paragraph-long rant about how cruel the US has been to Cuba's communist regime, forcing them to encourage their people to have gardens to compensate for not being able to import stuff. Horrors! NOT GARDENS! Example #3: Multiple times, she presents an ecological problem - deforestation and its contribution to topsoil erosion - then illustrates how the Jane Goodall Institute's genius innovation has magically solved this problem in several areas of the world. How fortuitous.
Anyway. I was pretty unimpressed by this and it actually turned me off of Goodall momentarily. I still have mad respect for her work as an ecologist, animal behaviorist and general well-intentioned good egg, but this isn't a good book. Any reader would be better-informed by just reading her suggested resources titles instead. Seriously.
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Sadly, I think the publishing world is afraid to take on the giants and figures the name alone will sell the books. A quality editor and perhaps a good ghost writer could have helped her pull together an informative piece based on her years of experience.
ReplyDeleteHowever, today quality seems to count for less. Name recognition will sell a book. As you said you chose it based on her name, despite the reviews that it was not reflective of her reputation.