I stumbled across this title and given the short length quickly finished it. Unfortunately the introductory pages were probably the best.
Gay begins by outlining a lavish dinner at a meeting of the G-8. She then writes “in contrast to the diners at the G-8 Summit one billion people around the world are undernourished. Many millions more are starving, many of them babies. They lack the minimum amount of food for health and growth. Yet farmers and ranchers produce more than enough food every year to feed everyone on earth but much of that food does not get the people who need it most. In some places food has become a precious item almost like gold.”
Gay also notes “The main cause of hunger and starvation is poverty. Around the world one billion people live on less than $1 per day. Poverty itself is the result of many things including social inequalities, government corruption and global economics. These same forces often prevent food supplies from reaching the people who need them.”
Gay quickly jumps from topic to topic and does a great job of providing statistics. Gay outlines ideas like the SNAP challenge and the correlation between poverty and obesity.
Gay has a negative view of factory farming. Next Gay turns her attention to climate change, with a focus on water and how higher temperatures will lead to drought and rising oceans. She notes that LA, New York, and Miami could end up under water. Gay also addresses genetic engineering of food and animals, food politics, and food as a weapon.
Gay concludes by advocating sustainable agriculture, eating insects, and organic farming.
This book reads mostly like a fact sheet and it lacks the depth that I would like to see. If the author is going to advocate for eating insects or a pill for food then there needs to be a more robust discussion about why that is necessary. Gay has a negative outlook for the future and wants everyone to adapt to her standards to save the world but she is not convincing in her approach. She mentions prominent cities that could end up under water but makes no attempt to explore innovations that could prevent that even if the sea rose to the levels she predicts.
Overall this book asks some very important questions at the beginning but does not adequately answer them. It goes from a promising start to a poor ending. I rate this book 2 out of 5 stars.
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
