Rob Wallace, the astute political phylogeographer and author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and Neoliberal Ebola (and, full disclosure, a friend who spent no small amount of time offering advice and feedback) has this to say about my forthcoming book, Beginning to End Hunger (out December 2017; available for pre-order now):
Jahi Chappell’s Beginning to End Hunger is at one and the same time an erudite, passionate, and accessible account of Belo Horizonte’s award-winning efforts to end hunger in that Brazilian city of 2.5 million people. Chappell connects the impacts of Brazil’s history and the politics of regional interventions on food access to the economics of local farming and the agroecology of the forest.
But the book is much, much more than that. Beginning to End Hunger is a road map for the difficult path to ending hunger and famine everywhere. The two chapters with which it begins take on the big picture, refuting the core of the productivist model of food and famine upon which much of the agribusiness paradigm depends as an existential rationale. In passing, Chappell shows us the extent to which even many a dedicated food activist and scholar has accepted false premises about food production and availability.
Ludwig Wittgenstein offered that the best a philosopher can do is help free his or her reader from many a historical trap, like helping a fly out of a bottle. What is done with that liberty is entirely up to the reader. For Chappell’s efforts here, I am grateful for my new found freedom. A foundational text.
Rob’s positive comments on the book mean a lot to me. I highly recommend checking out his writing at FarmingPathogens.wordpress.com and his recent books, particularly Big Farms Make Big Flu. And don’t forget, in light of Rob’s assessment, to pre-order your own copy of Beginning to End Hunger, of course.
Beginning to End Hunger 