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Eric Holt-Gimenez 
Tue Mar 16, 2010 at 23:59:45 PM PDT
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The basis for this book was one of the most amazing speeches I've ever heard. You know the type I mean - presentations like Al Gore's powerpoint on global warming that became An Inconvenient Truth. The speaker may have nothing more than a microphone and perhaps a Powerpoint, but the audience is transformed. Suddenly, an idea that the audience did not understand (and perhaps did not even know they were interested in) becomes so clear that everyone in the room feels like they can see it, hear it, and touch it. In this case, that speech was given by Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First in October 2008 and it was about the global food crisis. I guess I was not the only person who was so deeply touched because Holt-Gimenez went on to turn the speech into an entire book with co-author Raj Patel and help from Annie Shattuck. The full title is Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice.
That said, the book is quite academic, and reading it does not compare to the transformative experience of hearing the authors speak. (Patel and Holt-Gimenez can go head to head in a public speaking contest any day and I really don't know who would win. Both are amazing.) But the book does provide all of the facts underlying the amazing speech in a logical and readable format.
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Thu Jan 21, 2010 at 21:37:26 PM PST
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Eric Holt-Gimenez gave one of the most mind-blowing, powerful, inspiring speeches I've ever heard a few years ago on the subject of global food security and hunger. Haiti obviously plays into that in a major way. In an entire world of hungry people, Haiti was the country that made headlines for food riots and starving people eating mud in 2008. Therefore, I've been waiting for Holt-Gimenez to weigh in on Haiti ever since the earthquake. His organization, Food First, first wrote about the importance of donating to organizations like Partners in Health or Doctors Without Borders. This is, of course, appropriate. But today, over a week after the earthquake, Holt-Gimenez published a piece called Haiti: Roots of Liberty, Roots of Disaster.
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