The future of our food depends on tiny seeds in orchards and fields the world over. In 1943, one of the first to recognize this fact, the great botanist Nikolay Vavilov, lay dying of starvation in a Soviet prison. But in the years before Stalin jailed him as a scapegoat for the country's famines, Vavilov had traveled over five continents, collecting hundreds of thousands of seeds in an effort to outline the ancient centers of agricultural diversity and guard against widespread hunger. Now, another remarkable scientist-and vivid storyteller-has retraced his footsteps. In Where Our Food Comes From, Gary Paul Nabhan weaves together Vavilov's extraordinary story with his own expeditions to Earth's richest agricultural landscapes and the cultures that tend them. Retracing Vavilov's path from Mexico and the Colombian Amazon to the glaciers of the Pamirs in Tajikistan, he draws a vibrant portrait of changes that have occurred since Vavilov's time and why they matter.

About the Author
Gary Paul Nabhan is a world-renowned ethnobiologist, conservationist, and essayist. The author of Why Some Like It Hot, Coming Home to Eat, and many other books and articles, he has been honored with a M MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and The John Burroughs Medal for nature writing. Founder and facilitator of the Renewing America's Food Traditions collaborative, he is currently a Research Social Scientist at the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona.

Reviews
"Nine Must-Read Books" (on Eating Well) "Mixing the compulsively readable insights of a well-researched biography with the painstaking details of a scientific treatise, Nabhan offers a historical and contemporary framework for determining the viability of sustainable agriculture." (Booklist) "A blend of travelogue and biography, Nabhan's book is a sobering reminder that while food is necessary for our survival, it is not always easy to come by, nor is access to food completely under our control." (Bloomsbury Review)"



Book Information
ISBN 9781610910033
Author Gary Paul Nabhan
Format Paperback
Page Count 264
Imprint Island Press
Publisher Island Press