Rating: 
Summary: Insightful
Review: This is a book about one powerful idea with many stories and pieces of evidence to support the author's argument. The idea is that agriculture has had a profound effect not only on present day human diet and cuisine, but also on our culture and economy. The author weaves a narrative of his own studies, experience, and travels that persuasively leaves the reader with the impression that our present way of feeding ourselves is unsustainable. A solution is offered without any hint of preaching.I found this book insightful and important and only slightly flawed. I had problems in two areas. First, because the author tries to include many disjointed ideas into one package, I was sometimes confused as to how certain anecdotes or facts fit into the themes of each of the chapters. I suppose this is only natural when one is writing a grand narrative of this sort, but I felt that a smoother flow could have been attained with tighter editing. Secondly, although I did not generally doubt the facts and figures cited by the author, I wish he had included more references. There were a few times in which I thought the figures cited may have been one-sided and it would have been nice at least to see the source. Apart from these minor flaws, I found the book a good read and an important contribution to the body of knowledge in line with the many other 'big idea' books that have come out recently.
Rating: 
Summary: A polemic in the best sense
Review: This is one of the most stimulating, interesting books I have read in years. When I came across Manning's article ("The Oil We Eat") in the February, 2004 issue of Harper's it affected me profoundly, and I immediately went out and bought this book. Taking his cue from Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and Alfred Crosby's Ecological Imperialism, Manning argues that we are effectively the tools of what a system of what he calls "catastrophic agriculture" as the other way around. From an evolutionary perspective this system has been very successful: we and the whole complex of our domesticated ecology have not only survived but have remade the world in our image. But to say the system has been successful is not at all the same as saying it is good for us as individuals or is sustainable in the long run. Whatever you think of his argument--this is much more an argumentative than an academic book--it may well radically change the way you think about the economy, the ecology, and our place in it. Manning's perspective is an important and valuable one, well worth thinking about.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful assessment of the sorry state of agriculture
Review: Walk into to any supermarket and you probably feel very good about all of the choices you have. After all, the average supermarket carries over 25000 items these days. But if you are like most people, the vast majority of the items you will wind up purchasing are highly processed and contain precious little in the way of nutritional value. Did you know that nearly 2/3 of the calories the average American consumes come from just three crops--corn, wheat and potatoes?
Author Richard Manning sure got my attention with this fascinating book "Against The Grain". Manning argues that for the vast majority of history human beings were "hunter-gatherers". That is, people would migrate to where the food was and partake of a vast assortment of foods, everything from fruits and vegetables, to nuts and legumes and fresh meat. This all began to change about 10000 years ago with the advent of agriculture. Over the centuries people came to rely on fewer and fewer crops for survival. Manning notes that the pattern was virtually identical all over the world. Soon human beings came to rely on just a handful of crops, all high in carbohydrates, for survival. In recent decades the rise of huge conglomerates like ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) has further exacerbated the problem. Corporate entities do not view crops as food. Rather, they view crops as commodities and it is for this reason that family farms have all but disappeared, people in poor nations go unfed despite massive crop surplusses and those in rich nations wind up eating a largely bland and less than nutritious diet.
For those of us like myself who are poorly informed on these issues this book is certainly an eye-opener. Manning not only exposes the serious flaws in our current system but also proposes reasonable fixes to a number of these problems. Perhaps when we become aware of all those "empty" calories we ingest each day we will begin to think more carefully about the foods we eat. This book is extremely well written and kept my attention throughout. I would recommend it to just about anyone eager to learn more about these extremely serious issues.
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