Hope's Edge

Hope's Edge

by Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe published by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam New York, 2003. 449 pages

The corporations and their opinion leaders tell us everyday that there is no alternative to their vision of a world in which life is patented and every human has a price. I think they truly believe it. They certainly want us to believe it. They will not be pleased if this inspiring book gets a wide reading.

Frances Moore Lappe is the author of the 1971 bestseller Diet for a Small Planet, and at least ten other books on the politics of food and development. In Hope's Edge the focus is on food and agriculture, but the journey is as much about social justice, grassroots democracy, and making positive change.

Lappe and her daughter Anna describe their travels around the globe in search of alternatives to the dictatorship of the "free market." They find much that is inspiring in the midst of much that is desperate. They move from a school garden in California to a seed revolution in India. Along the way, they visit communities created by the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil, find a lending institution for the poor in Bangladesh, meet the amazing scientist/activist Vandana Shiva in Delhi, dance in Kenya with women who are reforesting the countryside, probe the heart of the fair-trade movement in Europe, and join the McDonald's-smashing Jose Bove in a trip to an area of Wisconsin which practices community supported agriculture. There are many more stops along the way, all of them enlightening, all of them vividly described in the authors' personal, accessible style.

The movements described are not the stuff of the six o'clock news, but they are huge and hopeful. They are viable, just, community-based alternatives involving and affecting millions of people. They are a response by ordinary and extra-ordinary people ground down or outraged by the demands of corporate capitalism. Neo-conservatives do not want you to know that such alternatives exist. A few of the movements have government support; most are ignored; some see their members murdered. Every chapter is inspiring. The epilogue includes a twelve-page list of organizations devoted to creating alternatives. The purpose of each organization and its mailing and web address are included.

And, if you want a more immediate taste of the authors' journey, there are also many pages of really good recipes for simple, nutritious meals.

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