Vegetarianism or Ancient Wine

Vegetarianism: A History

Author: Colin Spencer

Colin Spencer provides an in-depth account of vegetarianism. From prehistory to the present, he discusses those who came to vegetarianism by choice, from the religions who preach it such as Hinduism and Seventh-Day Adventism, to the individuals who practice it, including Leonardo da Vinci and, ironically, Adolf Hitler. Throughout history, vegetarians have been maligned and persecuted by their meat-eating brethren. Spencer looks at the psychology of abstention, the ideas behind a meat-free diet, as well as the environmental effects of meat production and the implications of genetic engineering. Although the vegetarian movement dates back to 600 B.C., it is only now becoming a practice valued by many who previously would have wondered, "Where's the beef?"

Table of Contents:

	Foreword for 2nd Edition
	Foreword
	Acknowledgements
1	In the Beginning	1
2	Pythagoras and His Inheritance	38
3	India	70
4	Plato to Porphyry	85
5	Early Christianity	107
6	Gnostic Sects and the Manicheans	126
7	The Bogomils, the Cathars and the Orthodox Church	142
8	The Renaissance	169
9	The Clockwork Universe	187
10	The Rise of Humanism	213
11	Docks and Dandelions	238
12	Sunlight and Sandals	275
13	Sentient or Machine?	296
	Afterword	331
App. 1	The Later History of Buddhism	336
App. 2	Manicheanism in China	339
App. 3	Modern Hinduism	342
	App. 4: The Rise of the Vegetarian Cookery Book	344
	Notes	346
	A Select Bibliography	367
	Index	372

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Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture

Author: Patrick E McGovern

The history of civilization is, in many ways, the history of wine. This book is the first comprehensive and up-to-date account of the earliest stages of vinicultural history and prehistory, which extends back into the Neolithic period and beyond. Elegantly written and richly illustrated, Ancient Wine opens up whole new chapters in the fascinating story of wine and the vine by drawing upon recent archaeological discoveries, molecular and DNA sleuthing, and the texts and art of long-forgotten peoples.

Patrick McGovern takes us on a personal odyssey back to the beginnings of this consequential beverage when early hominids probably enjoyed a wild grape wine. We follow the course of human ingenuity in domesticating the Eurasian vine and learning how to make and preserve wine some 7,000 years ago. Early winemakers must have marveled at the seemingly miraculous process of fermentation. From success to success, viniculture stretched out its tentacles and entwined itself with one culture after another (whether Egyptian, Iranian, Israelite, or Greek) and laid the foundation for civilization itself. As medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance, and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies, and society. As an evocative symbol of blood, it was used in temple ceremonies and occupies the heart of the Eucharist. Kings celebrated their victories with wine and made certain that they had plenty for the afterlife. (Among the colorful examples in the book is McGovern's famous chemical reconstruction of the funerary feast--and mixed beverage--of "King Midas.") Some peoples truly became "wine cultures."

When we sip aglass of wine today, we recapitulate this dynamic history in which a single grape species was harnessed to yield an almost infinite range of tastes and bouquets. Ancient Wine is a book that wine lovers and archaeological sleuths alike will raise their glasses to.

J. Madeleine Nash - Time Magazine

No one is better qualified to sift through the widely scattered clues [to the origins of winemaking] than McGovern, a skilled scientific sleuth who wields the most powerful tools of modern chemistry in his search for the roots of ancient wines.