Customer Reviews

Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet

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Hope's Edge is a Must Read for Everyone! The book puts it all together in an easy-to-understand, personal and honest fashion: the connection between consumerism, 'brainwashing', oppression, global economy, poverty, exploitation etc. etc. The concepts presented in this book are sophisticated and have depth. I liked the personal tone of the book, the story telling. The book is very honest, the stories told utterly inspiring. Frances and Anna never 'whitewash' the porlbmes the projects they are describing are facing. This truth-telling makes the stories even more impressive, more credible. The very existence of these projects defy the global systems as we know them. The way they do 'business' defies the global system of exploitation and competition. This book makes us take an honest look at ourselves, our values, the daily choices we make, what we consume, how we live. This is not just 'about food' or poverty or world hunger, this is truly food for thought and inspiration of how to create a better world."

Given the subject matter, one can be forgiven for expecting Hope's Edge to be a depressing read--after all we are pushing our planet to its absolute limit and hope sometimes seems a great folly. But rather than increase my sense of helplessness, the mother-daughter team of researchers and writers (Frances Moore-Lappe and Anna Lappe)have inspired me and indeed pushed the edge of hope a little further. With its documentation of individual lives and community-based solutions, the book reminds me about the importance of our individual decisions. It is easy to become complacent when I live in one of the wealthier parts of the world. It is just as easy to feel helpless and apathetic and to not see the impact I can make simply by supporting my local organic farmers and making other conscientious consumer decisions. Hope's Edge eloquently points to the power of imagination, of envisioning new ways of living and working in community. Thanks Anna and Frances for making the journey and sharing it with the world!

I have felt deeply moved and inspired reading "Hope's Edge". Travelling with Fances and Anna Lappé around the world to learn about alternative ways of thinking and living has been a wonderful, exciting inspiration to look at life and my place in life with new and different eyes and to find out how and where I can change my perceptions.
The actors in this book try to overcome and change the pain and problems of destructive ways of living. The book made me feel that my life, and everyone's life, can make a true difference, and that it is worth trying.
For me, it was one of the most important books which I have encountered, and the ideas and thinking of Frances and Anna Lappé will accompany me for many years to come.
What an interesting, exciting, wonderful book!

*There is a profound disconnect between the direction our planet is headed and our own deepest sensibilities.

*Why have we, as societies, created that which as individuals we abhor?

*None of use would chose to let a child die of hunger or preventable disease, but 32,000 children die everyday in our world.

*No one would intentionally destroy many of our living species, and yet tens of thousands fall every year now. It would take 10 million years to recover them all.

*No one would want to poke a hole in the ozone, and yet there is now one the size of a continent, causing cancer and deaths to soar.

*No one would want to create a greenhouse effect, disrupting the natural system in ways we are only beginning to understand, and yet our fossil-fuel industrial model, as well as our cattle ranching model, are doing just this.

*No one would consciously design a world community in which a few hundred individuals controlled as much wealth as half the worldï¿s population, and where 1 percent end up with more than do the bottom 95 percent, and yet this is the world we live in.

*In other words, how it could be that we humans are creating a world that at the deepest level we canï¿t recognize as ours? A world of mega-cities with unbreathable air, of sterile strip malls, of beggars and billionaires? A world that we have to shut out because the pain of seeing it is too great?

Grappling with the global crisis can be daunting, but in this book Lappe (and little Lappe) have here clarified the crisis, highlighted the ï¿thought trapsï¿ that keep us locked into this deadly mode, and provided a new ï¿mental mapï¿ of how we can revitalize ourselves and the planet. . This book is a global tour de force, skipping from continent to continent, community to community, in search of Hope. And the good news is, they found it. This book details numerous examples from all over the world where hope and genuine democracy are literally springing up from the ground. As clichéd as it might sound, Hope is very much alive. This book is a celebration of food and people and the communities that bind them. For the sake of life itself, everyone should read this. Re-discover the world, yourself, and the food that sustains us.

Many authors can and have articulated the problems of today's society. It is important for those problems to be exposed and explained - but where does that leave us? As someone all too familiar with the problems, and struggling to live with my ideals in today's America, it is easy to feel like there is no hope and the world's people are just accepting their fate at the hands of the multi-nationals. That's when a book like Hope's Edge begins to reveal its meaning and importance: it not only covers the problems, more importantly, it uncovers stories of people who are overcoming the problems.

The book arms us with examples of people and strategies that are working, that are making progress. It didn't leave me feeling like we're all doomed no matter what we do, it didn't leave me feeling that I can sit back and relax because someone else is making things ok, it simply gave and gives me hope, examples and evidence that it is possible to create healthy communities and empower people in the face of fear, oppression and poverty. That is the seed of true power, the knowing it is possible. For that I thank Ms. Lappé and her daughter and highly recommend their book.

I wanted to give you some feedback about an extraordinary book that you sell. Just out a few months ago, written by Frances Moore Lappe (author of Diet for a Small Planet), Ms. Lappe and her daughter Anna traveled 5 continents to write the stories of people in communities that are"doing the right thing" - benefiting their communities in sustainable ways as well as themselves and serving as inspiration for those of us who work to create more healthy and sustainable communities. Hope's Edge is even better than Diet for a Small Planet, and serves as a remarkable guide in a world that has become much harder to live in.

Two books that have really changed the way I think about the world are Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Hope's Edge, by Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe. Thank you for carrying books that introduce constructive avenues toward social change and move people to positive action.

The "hopelessly hopeful" reviewer seemed to have missed the Lappe's whole message, or maybe intentionally didn't see it. I loved HOPE'S EDGE and the Lappe's point that hope doesn't come from stacking up evidence but it comes, as they say, from taking action. Through their stories of big and small social change, from school gardens in Berkeley to our personal choices about food to the largest social movement in Brazil, the Lappe's help all of us see we each have a role in helping our planet evolve. Thank you to the Lappe's for giving us such a hope-with-an-edge message at a time when so many of us are feeling desperate.

I grew up with Diet for a Small Planet, and am delighted by Lappe's new book writen with her daughter. I am inspired to get involved in my communities agriculture/whole foods issues, and to try the new recipies.

Frances Moore Lappe has nothing more to prove to anyone, as her considerable contributions to humanity are beyond all doubt. When she first published *A Diet for a Small Planet,* her messages related to the wastefulness of a meat-centered food system were stunningly revolutionary. The materials she has contributed since related to the myths surrounding world hunger have also been marvelously convincing, and well-researched. Bravo to her!

In this updated version of her first and still highly important work, Lappe (and her daughter) have updated much of the alarming information related to politically perpetuated malnutrition coexisting with obesity, wasted grain, and the ecological perils of an food system dominated by large corporations. There are new vegetarian recipes, as well, and that's terrific.

However, there comes a point where some portions of the same old message can become hackneyed and even tiresome. The truth is that despite the contributions of Lappe and others over the past few decades, the world food system actually has moved in the wrong direction. More people than ever want to consume a meat-dominated diet, there are more dangerous chemicals than ever being dumped into our ecosystems, and the massively capitalized, juggernaut-like genetics engineering initiative rolls onward, positively frightening in its Frankenstein-esque implications.

So where is the "hope" in all of this? Lappe and her daughter try to inspire us by describing a small number of positive food-related experiments from around the world. These are interesting, and the authors describe them from a first-person perspective in lucid and entertaining fashion.

However, what I find irksome is the notion that we readers actually are supposed to find a "basis for hope" in these pitifully isolated activities. The truth is there always will be a few visionaries/eccentrics/social rebels who will devote themselves to experimental projects that appear "revolutionary." This has been true for decades, if not centuries. How significant is this really, however, in light of the overwhelming trends that are carrying us in the opposite direction?

One reason for my Scrooge-like attitude here is that I am quite familiar with one of the examples used, the "Edible Schoolyard" at King Middle School in Berkeley, California. One reason this project is so exuberantly ballyhooed is that it is the brainchild of the Infallible Alice Waters, who has delivered Exquisitely Pure and Pricey food for the toney elite at her Chez Panisse restaurant for decades now. The truth is that whereas the Edible Schoolyard is interesting and provides a modicum of educational value for some middle school students, it is largely irrelevant even to life-in-general at King Middle School. Students there are just as addicted to fast food and junk food as kids anywhere else, and the number of students whose lives are "changed" by this project is strikingly small.

I suspect the same is true of the rest of these projects, as well. There inevitably are a few purehearts who are True Believers, plus a few others who take note and make some marginal changes in their own lives. But overall, these "hopeful" experiments are almost pathetic in their overall irrelevance to the mainstream world food system.

My quarrel with the authors, then, is not with anything in particular regarding their research, their overall choice of topics, or their goals (which are laudable, certainly!) No, I take issue with their almost desperately upbeat tone/message with its absurdly naive-seeming dosage of "hope" based on consumer gestures, tiny organic experimental plots, and tasty vegetarian recipes. I can just visualize millions of well-fed Americans feeling sooo good about themselves and the global future based on their new-found allegiance to Chez Panisse cookery and a vow to swear off Big Macs. This simply will not do.

Given the horrors of what's going on politically and economically in this world currently, it might well be time for more exhortation toward basic political activism and hard-nosed resistance to the machinery of corporate domination, and less clinging to the false "hope" provided by tiny edible schoolyard plots in Berkeley.

This is one of the most creative, courageous books I've read in a long time, drawing lessons from something as essential as food to renew our hope in an era of anxiety, cynicism, and learned helplessness. Hope's Edge offers a welcome alternative to a world increasingly dominated by global capitalism, where more is often spent on processing, packaging, and promotion than on the nutritional value of the food itself and where American citizens are becoming unwary guinea pigs for GMO foods.
From their grassroots research spanning five continents, Frances and Anna Lappe bring heartening evidence that democracy is still alive, that our personal choices can add up to make a tremendous difference, and that, as Margaret Mead once said, "a small group of highly committed people can change the world." I recommend this book highly for its compelling vision of creativity, community, and positive social change.