CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games Books TV
Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Books

All-Time High Scores
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Books In Our Forums

 

Upcoming & Recent Releases

sort by name sort by score

 

Upcoming & Recent Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed books.

 



The Bloodless Revolution
A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times
by Tristram Stuart

The Bloodless Revolution reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 75 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
N/A out of 10
based on 17 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?
based on 0 votes
read user comments
rate this book

In his debut book, Tristram Stuart examines the history of vegetarianism.

W. W. Norton, 656 pages
01/08/2007
$29.95

ISBN: 0393052206

Nonfiction
Cooking, Food & Diets
History

What The Critics Said

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Publishers Weekly
Stuart offers a masterful social and cultural history of a movement that changed the ways people think about the food they eat. [30 Oct 2006, p.47]
San Francisco Chronicle Michael O'Donnell
A beautifully written work of impressive scholarship, perhaps the most erudite yet to appear on the subject of vegetarian history.
Read Full Review
The Independent Chandak Sengoopta
A wonderful book, crammed with original research and written with verve, wit and passion. The most enthralling work of cultural history I have read in years, it brings out the political, ethical and environmental implications of our dietary choices without any preachiness.
Read Full Review
The Observer Jonathan Beckman
The brilliance of Stuart's book is to demonstrate that the study of attitudes towards food is the gateway to appreciating how people understood their place in society, their relationship to their environment and the significance of being human.
Read Full Review
The Economist
With the balance of an easy style and comprehensive, if discreet, research, he avoids most of the pitfalls of popular histories in which seeming ephemera take centre stage. Thankfully too, those other singularly vegetarian dangers -- preachiness and a copious flow of hot air -- could not be less in evidence.
Read Full Review
The Independent A C Grayling
Stuart writes with flair and intelligence, and this debut shows that he is destined to be a luminous presence in his literary generation.
Read Full Review
Booklist Mark Knoblauch
Marvelously researched, deeply revealing, minutely considered history of vegetarianism. [15 Nov 2006, p.14]
Kirkus Reviews
Culinary and cultural history intertwined: readable, and endlessly interesting. [15 Oct 2006, p.1061]
Village Voice Lenora Todaro
Scholarly and at times colorful, The Bloodless Revolution follows the tides of vegetarian thought as one generation influences the next, but it also gets at what it means to be human, part of something larger than oneself.
Read Full Review
Washington Post Mark Kurlansky
Both scholarly and entertaining, The Bloodless Revolution is a huge feast of ideas -- ideas from India and France and America, from ancient Greece and Thoreau and Emerson, from Rousseau, Hobbes, the Kabbalah, the Old Testament, Descartes and Darwin, to name just a few of the better-known sources that weigh in on the meatless diet.
Read Full Review
The Guardian Kevin Rushby
Stuart's closing call for us "to reduce our consumption of meat" is not new either, but his book is a welcome reminder of why such a call is more important than ever.
Read Full Review
Slate Laura Shapiro
In the realm of pure thought, [Stuart] certainly proves his case. But if the most ardent advocates of bloodless eating shrank back in dismay when the bean loaf came around, it seems doubtful that ordinary folk greeted it any more enthusiastically.
Read Full Review
The New York Times Book Review Edward Rothstein
The book would have been still more pungent had it tried to do less, organized itself with more rigor and not placed so many piquant findings in such obscure niches.
Read Full Review
Boston Globe Michael Kammen
This is not a book for every taste, but it goes well with tea and sympathy -- and time, a prime requisite.
Read Full Review
The Nation Daniel Lazare
Intelligent, readable, if ultimately unsatisfying.
Read Full Review
The Spectator Anthony Daniels
Like many people who undertake lengthy and painstaking research into arcane subject matter, Stuart tends to exaggerate its importance. [2 Sept 2006]
Salon Laura Miller
In truth, The Bloodless Revolution does a little bit of all of these things, but in a scattered, partial and confusing way that mostly just frustrates the reader looking for a thoughtful history of vegetarianism.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this book is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this book in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | BOOKS | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise | Partnerships                                Visit other CNET Networks sites:

Copyright ©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use