NEVER OUT OF SEASON

Once again Rob Dunn shows how relevant knowledge of natural history and ecology is to the environment and to the details of our personal lives.

NEVER OUT OF SEASON outlines how streamlining our crops-breeding the hardiest, best tasting varieties to be seemingly never out of season-has left our food supply without diversity and dangerously susceptible to nature's pathogens.

This is a compelling, beautifully written and urgently needed book for everyone interested in the past, present and future of agriculture. By weaving together science, history and biography, Dunn will transform how you think about sustainability in an increasingly complex and precarious world in which we rely on just a few industrial crops to feed more than seven billion people.

Part cautionary tale and part call to arms, Rob Dunn's new book vividly exposes the vulnerability of our most important crops. An alarming and illuminating read.

Thought-provoking.... Well researched historically and scientifically, this admonitory book on the future of our foodways is an interesting read on agricultural sustainability.

Forget about cooking books. This is the most important book you will read about food this year. Every single page has surprising facts and insights. The health of the planet depends on us eating more plants. But the monoculture of our foods that dominates global crops could have disastrous effects if we don't begin to think differently. Never Out of Season will change forever the way you look at a potato, a banana, or your chocolate bar. --- Peter C. Kjærgaard, Museum Director and Professor of Evolutionary History, Natural History Museum of Denmark

Thoroughly researched... accessible.... Recommended for anyone interested in agriculture, agricultural history, food science, or general biology.

Engrossing... [Dunn] mediates on the humility with which his colleagues and forebears have preserved the planet's botany... shows how we have been spared catastrophe by legions of unsung heroes and heroines working across a range of crops, from cassava to cocoa to rubber to wheat.

Nature is threatened, by our simplification of the Earth. But, as Dunn makes clear in this soon to be classic page turner of a book, this simplification of nature makes us ever more rather than less dependent on nature. This is a lesson we need to heed now at a time in which our bananas, but also our wheat, our cassava and even the rubber in our tires is threatened like never before. Everyone who eats should read Never Out of Season.

A convincing argument that the agricultural revolution that has made food more readily available around the world contains the seeds of its own destruction.... An alarming account but one suggesting that, armed with knowledge, we can reverse this way of treating the plants that feed us and find a way toward a more sustainable diet.

...Rob's capacity to open our minds and senses to other possibilities makes him my favorite literary naturalist...

Never Out of Season is an extraordinary achievement. In it, Dunn tells the story of the most important of all human endeavors from the perspective of an ecologist. He celebrates our successes and draws lessons from our follies with equal parts humor and wit.

Dunn... cautions against monoculture in this cogent and optimistic examination of our food system, arguing that having whatever food we want whenever we want isn't necessarily a good thing.... That scientists and researchers continue to play significant roles in the fight for agricultural diversity and sustainability gives Dunn hope.

Never Out of Season is an extraordinary achievement. In it, Dunn tells the story of the most important of all human endeavors from the perspective of an ecologist. He celebrates our successes and draws lessons from our follies with equal parts humor and wit.

[Dunn's] message is clear and timely: scientists, governments and consumers must work together to preserve and improve a diverse, resilient food supply in a rapidly changing world.

Dunn weaves together powerful historical and modern examples to show that the safety of our global food supply rests on the edge of a knife.

Japan: Seido-sha ; Korea: Intepark Int.