The Meat Paradox
'Brilliantly provocative, original, electrifying' Bee Wilson, Financial Times
Published on 3. March 2022
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-1-4087-1381-5 (ISBN)
Description
Our future diet will be shaped by diverse forces. It will be shaped by novel technologies and the logic of globalisation, by geopolitical tensions and the evolution of cultural preferences, by shocks to the status quo - pandemics and economic strife, the escalation of the climate and ecological crises - and by how we choose to respond. It will also be shaped by our emotions. It will be shaped by the meat paradox.
'Should we eat animals?' was, until recently, a question reserved for moral philosophers and an ethically minded minority, but it is now posed on restaurant menus and supermarket shelves, on social media and morning television. The recent surge in popularity for veganism in the UK, Europe and North America has created a rupture in the rites and rituals of meat, challenging the cultural narratives that sustain our omnivory.
In The Meat Paradox, Rob Percival, an expert in the politics of meat, searches for the evolutionary origins of the meat paradox, asking when our relationship with meat first became emotionally and ethically complicated. Every society must eat, and meat provides an important source of nutrients. But every society is moved by its empathy. We must all find a way of balancing competing and contradictory imperatives. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of our empathy, the psychology of our dietary choices, and anyone who has wondered whether they should or shouldn't eat meat.
'Should we eat animals?' was, until recently, a question reserved for moral philosophers and an ethically minded minority, but it is now posed on restaurant menus and supermarket shelves, on social media and morning television. The recent surge in popularity for veganism in the UK, Europe and North America has created a rupture in the rites and rituals of meat, challenging the cultural narratives that sustain our omnivory.
In The Meat Paradox, Rob Percival, an expert in the politics of meat, searches for the evolutionary origins of the meat paradox, asking when our relationship with meat first became emotionally and ethically complicated. Every society must eat, and meat provides an important source of nutrients. But every society is moved by its empathy. We must all find a way of balancing competing and contradictory imperatives. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of our empathy, the psychology of our dietary choices, and anyone who has wondered whether they should or shouldn't eat meat.
Reviews / Votes
In all the best ways, The Meat Paradox complicates the ongoing debate between omnivores and herbivores. It's a funny, reverent reminder that meat has always been central to our story as a society. -- Dan Barber, author of The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food How can humans simultaneously love animals and love to eat them? In The Meat Paradox, Rob Percival takes on this question, combining great story telling with the latest findings in fields ranging from psychology and neuroscience to anthropology and moral philosophy. Whether you are an omnivore, a vegetarian, or a vegan, this book is a page turner that will spin your head around. -- Hal Herzog, author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals Passionate, sophisticated, urgently important and compulsively readable. Percival's enquiry dives into deep time, into other dimensions and ranges across the continents in a search not only for our relationship with meat, but our relationship with ourselves. It's an exhilarating and salutary record of our stuttering conversation with the non-human world, and a robust interrogation of our whole way of being. -- Charles Foster, author of Being a Human and Being a Beast The Meat Paradox is utterly brilliant, in the range of its erudition, the power of its argument, its revelatory profundity and its compelling storytelling. -- Jay Griffiths, author of Why Rebel A fearless exploration of the question that has shaped human evolution and could determine whether we survive as a species into the future: Should we eat animals? Making an important contribution to the debate that goes deep into the question of whether we humans evolved to be omnivores, The Meat Paradox asks whether we should continue eating meat in the face of the climate catastrophe. Percival takes a detailed look at the history and the arguments and ultimately answers the question of how to be an 'ethical omnivore'. -- Louise Gray, author of The Ethical Carnivore: My Year Killing to Eat An even-handed and nuanced exploration of our deeply complex moral relationships with other animals, The Meat Paradox is a compelling journey into the evolutionary past, potential future, and conflicted psyche of the planet's most dangerous and empathetic predator: us. -- Tovar Cerulli, author of The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian's Hunt for Sustenance In searching for the answers to a complicated question, this beautifully written book will take you to some unexpected and fascinating places. Written by someone who clearly cares deeply about animals and our planet, it provides much needed nuance in an often polarized debate. -- Tobias Leeneart, author of How to Create a Vegan World: a Pragmatic Approach Brilliantly provocative, original, electrifying -- Bee Wilson * Financial Times * It's very much worth a read * Times Radio * The Meat Paradox is a fascinating book, part cultural history of meat, part manifesto, part pilgrimage. Percival is a gifted writer, marshalling evidence, weaving together interviews and offering descriptions that at times verge on the poetic. * Sunday Times * In this fascinating must-read for anyone interested in understanding and addressing exactly why morally troublesome behaviours vanish into the commonplace and every day, Percival grippingly guides the reader through the psychological complexity of our challenges, finding a middle ground in the debate and helping people decide where they may sit in the midst of it all. * Bristol Mag * [This] provocative book presents a challenge that most haven't even begun to confront - and few are ready to meet. * Guardian * Impressively nuanced * The Week * Rob Percival delves into our carnivorous history and culture and examines its deep connection to the human psyche. It's an erudite and entertaining excavation, but it also brings us to the present, prompting us to ask what relationship to animals, both wild and domesticated, we should choose now, in a warming world where very few of us need meat to survive. It's one of the big questions of our age, and Percival compellingly insists we mustn't shrink from it. * Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall * Rob Percival does for meat what David Graeber did for debt, drawing on a wealth of knowledge about the ways that humans have made life work in different times and places to redraw the lines of today's ethical debate. Fascinating and unsettling, this is a book about how we became what we are - and where we go from here. * Dougald Hine, co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project * In searching for the answers to a complicated question, this beautifully written book will take you to some unexpected and fascinating places. Written by someone who clearly cares deeply about animals and our planet, it provides much needed nuance in an often polarized debate. * Tobias Leenaert, author of How to Create a Vegan World: a Pragmatic Approach * The Meat Paradox exposes the deeply complex and haunting relationship we have with the animals we eat. As a livestock farmer, I've considered this as much as I've dared, but Rob opens the paradox to unblinking scrutiny. The meat debate is one of the most contested raging in the world at the moment, with opposing camps waging war. Rob demolishes the propaganda on both sides, and having exposed the paradox, refuses to provide a pat solution. This is an existential issue which demands that we consider deeply but perhaps can never fully resolve. * Helen Browning, author of Pig: Tales from an Organic Farm * An even-handed and nuanced exploration of our deeply complex moral relationships with other animals, The Meat Paradox is a compelling journey into the evolutionary past, potential future, and conflicted psyche of the planet's most dangerous and empathetic predator: us. * Tovar Cerulli, author of The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian's Hunt for Sustenance *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 164 mm
Thickness: 36 mm
Weight
620 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4087-1381-5 (9781408713815)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Rob Percival is a writer, campaigner and food policy expert. His commentary on food and farming has featured in the national press and on prime time television, and his writing has been shortlisted for the Guardian's International Development Journalism Prize and the Thomson Reuters Foundation's Food Sustainability Media Award. He works as Head of Food Policy for the Soil Association. The Meat Paradox is his first book.