Against the Grain

by Richard Manning 

This book is a thoroughly researched history of human food production and consumption as well as a commentary on this history.  The author traces this history beginning with the human-caused extinction of New World megafauna thousands of years ago up through the cultivation of almost all of earth’s arable land.  He spends a significant amount of time on the costs and benefits of early agriculture on the population as well as the societal structures that are inherent to agriculture but were foreign to hunter-gatherers.

The author does an excellent job of highlighting the subconscious aspect of food production and consumption—the predatory instinct subverted within all modern humans and the visceral reaction of the tongue to ripe, fresh fruit.  Much of his objection with modern agriculture is that it removes humans from the food production process and therefore deprives us of a significant part of what makes us human.  He also explores in detail the environmental damage caused by agribusiness.

This book is phenomenal, and it brought me into contact with the concept of permaculture, for which I am eternally grateful.  Also because of this book I now call caucasians “wheat-beef people” and recognize that most American-made food products were, at one point, corn.  The book is available here.

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