Trustbuilding: An Honest Conversation on Race, Reconciliation, and Responsibility Book

I only made it through 2 chapters, but I feel compelled to bring down the rating. For a book dealing with the movement of food, published in 2007, marketed as following in the tradition of Kurlansky and Pollan, I'd call this not just irrelevant but irresponsible.

The writing and research are uneven. There is little compelling history or food writing. Confusingly, I found no attempt to address any of the current hot topics surrounding hyper food mobility - local eating/food safety/public health/oil/sustainability. And when the author did venture into political territory, it was to spout all kinds of tangential conservative talking points about free trade, market creation, and cheap consumer goods!! Get off my bookshelf!

It's hard to think of a topic less obviously related to sweeping changes in global culture. And yet... I spent the whole first chapter on the Roman olive oil trade squinting for any context, let alone deep or insightful analysis. Finally my jaw dropped at this..
"While oil merchants talked money in the Square of Guilds, these slaves were out on the docks, their backs glistening with beads of sweat as they unloaded pot after pot of olive oil beneath the fiery Italian sun. And those pots were extremely heavy. An amphora weighed about sixty-six pounds when empty. When full, carrying about six gallons, it weighed more than double that. For the slaves, then, the amphora was a heavy burden. For the men and donkeys lugging broken shards up the slopes of Monte Testaccio, the amphora was a chore. But for the olive merchants of Baetica, it was something quite different - an extraordinarily efficient ceramic vessel at the heart of an international trade that thrived many centuries before the word globalization had been coined."

OK. Did she just casually mention that the entire system was based on SLAVE LABOR and then CASUALLY BRUSH IT OFF in favor of the TRADE BENEFITS?? Also, does she have ANY IDEA what globalization IS? Also, is she extremely preoccupied with innovations in the technology of food transportation containers?

The answer, unfortunately, is YES.

I persevered for one more chapter, on the modern use of standardized shipping containers. Specifically, the refrigerated ones used to send fish from American fisheries to China in giant tankers. Where women make nothing doing the dirty work of prepping the fish and then ship them BACK to the American consumer, months later. Naturally, the author thinks this is a FABULOUS idea! At least she addresses one of the social consequences full on. Well, she quotes Dickens and carries on about how grand it is to eliminate the dirty back-breaking labor of the dock workers. But, wait for it... "The container has arguably been one of history's greatest agents of change - and not just for the 'wharfies' who lost their jobs. Containers brought consumers new and exciting goods from remote places... Americans and Europeans could acquire cheap television sets and washing machines. Rattan furniture became fashionable. People bought things they previously would have never dreamed of possessing as the container helped foster the consumer revolution." Yay for buying shit we don't need! Yay for more random container technology! (And, oops, did I just let slip that this system is super susceptible to terrorism? Don't worry, we're throwing lots of money at a technological solution! Military-industrial complex to the rescue!)

She makes ZERO mention of the environmental/health costs of pointlessly shipping the fish around the world. She also claims that consumers just aren't interested in the human rights violations of the fish-boning women abroad! And even if they were... "Globalization has side effects that are harsh - whether for poorly treated workers on one side of the world or those who have lost their job on the other... Yet these are problems best addressed on land, through retraining programs, financial safety nets, and tough measures to prevent labor abuses. They are not reasons for halting the passage across the ocean of traveling T-shirts or moveable feasts." Ah yes, government gets to clean up the mess, but how dare they regulate. Thank you for THAT old song and dance. Because we aren't hearing it enough these days.

Then the chapter veers into a rather incoherent rant against critics of globalization, complete with a litany of torn-from-the-decade-old-headlines examples of violent protests by misguided peasants and anarchists. Did you know that developing nations and protesters are hypocrites and corporations their victims? Poor Nike, etc. I barely paraphrase.

This is about where I threw the book down with disgust, drawing stares from my fellow Southwest passengers.

Dude. Publish your right-wing agendas to your heart's content, but why bother to hide it in a book masquerading as something relevant to the current discussion of food politics? How can this be the same Sarah Murray that apparently blogs about sustainability for the Huffington Post????