Synopses & Reviews
Thirty years ago, Frances Moore Lappé, then a 26 year-old college student in
Berkeley, wrote the groundbreaking Diet for a Small Planet a book that
started a revolution in the way Americans think about food and hunger (and
has since gone on to sell 3 million copies and counting!). Lappé challenged
the notion that world hunger is caused by nature's scarcity and went on to
prove that the world crisis is not a scarcity of food but a scarcity of
democracy. She helped us see how we are generating the very food scarcity
that we say we most fear and, most importantly, she showed how each of us
has the power to choose the opposite: a diet best for our bodies and also
best for our planet.
Now, for the 30th anniversary sequel to her revolutionary classic, Frances
Moore Lappé has teamed up with her 27 year-old daughter, Anna, to offer the
perspective of two generations wisdom and youth in creating what is
destined to be another groundbreaker, Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small
Planet
Featuring nearly seventy recipes from vegetarian, organic, and whole-foods
culinary pioneers such as Mollie Katzen (The Moosewood Cookbook), Anna
Thomas (The Vegetarian Epicure), and Alice Waters as well as mouth-watering
menus from some our country's most celebrated natural foods restaurants
including Angelica's Kitchen (New York City), The Millennium Restaurant (San
Francisco), and Chez Panisse (Berkeley, CA). Hope's Edge highlights these
true trailblazers engaged in social, environmental, and economic
transformations, bringing us back to the sensual pleasure of eating fresh,
whole foods and reconnecting us to the earth and to those who tend it.
Review
"As they chronicle these smart, inspiring efforts and consider the concept of "food security" as a human right, the Lappes drive home their crucial theme: what's best for our bodies is best for our communities and for the earth itself." Donna Seaman, Booklist
Review
"Some of the twentieth century's most vibrant activist thinkers have been
American women Margaret Mead, Jeanette Rankin, Barbara Ward, Dorothy Day
who took it upon themselves to pump life into basic truths. Frances Moore
Lappé is among them." The Washington Post
Synopsis
The author of the classic
Diet for a Small Planet and her daughter travel the world, discovering practical visionaries who are making a difference in world hunger, sometimes one village at a time.
Thirty years ago Frances Moore Lappé started a revolution in the way Americans think about food and hunger. Now Frances and her daughter, Anna, pick up where Diet for a Small Planet left off. Together, they set out on an around-the-world journey to explore the greatest challenges we face at the new millennium. Traveling to Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, they discovered answers to the most urgent issue of our time: Whether we are able to transcend today's consumerism and the isolation of "me-first" capitalism and find the paths that each of us can follow to heal our lives and the planet. Featuring nearly seventy recipes from celebrated vegetarian culinary pioneers-including Alice Waters, Mollie Katzen, Laurel Robertson, Nora Pouillon, and Anna Thomas-Hope's Edge highlights true trailblazers engaged in social, environmental, and economic transformations.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 415-419) and index.
About the Author
While writing
Hope's Edge, Lappé, author of twelve other books, was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently, she is currently a senior fellow at Second Nature in Boston.
Lappé is the co-founder of two national organizations concerning food and the roots of democracy. In 1975, with Joseph Collins she launched the California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (better known as Food First) to educate Americans about the causes of world hunger. Still making waves after twenty-five years, the Institute was described by The New York Times as one of the nation's "most respected food think tanks." Its publications continue to shape the international debate on the root causes of hunger and poverty.
In 1990, Lappé co-founded the Center for Living Democracy, a ten-year initiative that helped make visible and accelerate the spread of democratic innovations in which regular citizens contribute to problem solving in all dimensions of public life.
Lappé served as founding editor of the Center's American News Service, which over five years placed solutions-oriented news stories in more than 300 newspapers, including almost half of the nation's top 100 newspapers by circulation.
Lappé's books, used in a broad array of courses in hundreds of colleges and universities in more than 50 countries and have been translated into over a dozen languages. Lappé's 1989 book, Rediscovering America's Values, written as a dialogue, has sparked discussion on democratic values in thousands of settings. The Los Angeles Times called the book "original" and "provocative"-a "remarkable and valuable resource... It will help individual readers clarify their own personal values."
Her 1994 The Quickening of America: Rebuilding Our Nation, Remaking our Lives focuses on the success stories and practical tools of citizen problem solving.
Lappé's life and work have been featured in People Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Utne Reader, Vegetarian Times, Orion Magazine, and many other publications. Lappé's articles have appeared in publications as diverse as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Readers' Digest, Christian Century, Chemistry, Le Monde Diplomatique, National Civic Review, Tikkun, and Harpers.
Her television and radio appearances have included the Today Show, CBS Radio, and National Public Radio. Lappé's work has been featured in several television documentaries, including an hour-long special devoted to her life that aired in Australia and Great Britain. She lectures widely to university audiences, community groups, and professional conferences.
Lappé has received 15 honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions, including the University of Michigan, Kenyon College, Allegheny College, and Lewis and Clark College.
In 1987 in Sweden, Lappé became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the "Alternative Nobel," for her "vision and work healing our planet and uplifting humanity." In her 30's, Lappé received the annual Mademoiselle magazine award, honoring young American women leaders. Lappé's book awards include the World Hunger Media Award and the Henry George Award. In 2000, she was inducted into Natural Health Magazine's Hall of Fame.