The End of Food

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The End of Food
by Paul Roberts
from Houghton Mifflin

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

• The End of Food
  This is a most thoght-provoking book. I was introduced to it through an interview with the author on NPR and was intrigued because he had written The End of Oil a few years ago and was pretty much spot on about what has transpired. Food - its production, consumption, history, etc. - is so well-covered in this book that I can never, ever think about food in the same light, or not think about it for that matter.
  

• Not Malthus, Any More Than Climatologist Hansen is Chicken Little
  I agree this is among the very best of this century's "Declinist Literature". Although the author covers a lot of problematic ground, from avian flu to bioengineering to obesity, what sticks with me the most is his urgent Cassandra alarm about the looming danger of worldwide famine.
  Those who poo poo Roberts as "Malthusian" should read more carefully the section with Malthus, who was writing his doomsday predictions at a time when the whole New World still lay there rich in topsoil, ripe for takeover... more info

• Decent book, badly edited
  Robert's "End of Food" includes a lot of good information, but there are probably 200 places where a good editor would've challenged the author to reword or tighten up the manuscript. I wonder whether his editor even read the book carefully, or whether he/she knew enough about the subject to properly edit it. A few examples of the issues I'm talking about:
  At the beginning of the book Roberts lays out a ridiculously simplified, linear reductionist theory of the role meat consumption played in man's... more info

• Difficult to plod all the way through
  I had read Roberts' earlier "the end of oil" and had forgotten how difficult it was to read through. This book is slightly less interesting despite the more interesting topic, which in theory should be more malthusian than the end of oil, but Roberts treats every issue with a very vacillating, politician-like ambiguity. It's surprising for example that he doesn't make more out of the peaking of fossil fuels in relation to fertilizer for food production. Every time he comes near to making a point he hedges... more info

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