Current reads

I picked up a discarded copy of Janet Barkas' The Vegetable Passion at a library book sale around a month ago. It's subtitled A History of the Vegetarian State of Mind and examines different periods throughout the history of vegetarianism, focusing on some obvious areas like its practice in India and by the early Greeks, as well as the movement that came much later in England. It also examines famous vegetarians like Tolstoy, and even Hitler (more infamous than famous, that one). Published in 1975, it definitely precedes the huge flurry of writing about vegetarianism that seems to be filling up bookstore shelves today in post-Peter-Singer days. From some snooping around online with Google, I'm assuming that it's well out-of-print.

Here's a not-so-kind review of it from Time, printed at the time of its publication. The reviewer didn't think much of Barkas' style and seeming lack of substance, but noted the importance and relevance of the of the subject matter, nonetheless. I'll share my own thoughts on the book at a later date, since I'm just a few dozen pages into it right now and am currently in over my head reading an Eliot Coleman book on organic farming (something about which I'll also be posting at a later date).