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© 2008 The New Zealand Geographical Society

it was dismissed as utopian and petty bour-geois in the late 1920s.

The contributions are grouped together andintroduced by a separate chapter that providesa context for each city’s urban development.London is introduced by David Reeder withPatricia Garside providing a more recent follow-up. Both of these chapters are exemplarypieces of work and condense a large volume ofarchival work by other authors. Stockholm isintroduced by Lars Nilsson, Helsinki by PeterClark and Marjatta Hietala, and St Petersburgby Boris Anan’ich and Alexander Kobak.The chapters on Stockholm offer a numberof useful insights. First of all, the influenceof Germany on the form and use of parks(Catherine Nolan, Mats Deland). Second, theconnection between open space and modernisthousing projects (Nilsson with Stuart Bruch).Third, Stockholm’s emphasis on ecologicalconservation through national parks providesan example of how the use of green spaceshas changed in the age of sustainability (PeterSchantz).

The chapters on Helsinki provide keyinsights on the development of the city andhow the idealization of nature influenced theprovision of open space. As functionalismgained a foothold in Helsinki, it brought anemphasis on connecting the city to nature(Katri Lento). The contributions show thatNordic cities like many others have had toconfront the challenge of involving citizens inthe planning of open spaces (Marjaana Niemi)as well as providing multiseasonal spacesfor a postmodern citizenry (Niko Lipsanen).St Petersburg demonstrates another set offorces at work that influence the provision ofopen space. The aristocracy provided theinitial impetus for developing the city’s parks(Konstantin Semenov). These were thenfollowed by a shift towards socialist planning(Alexei Kitaev).

While Peter Clark does not pretend to haveproduced a comprehensive work, this is arichly informative and important book, whichis complemented by an excellent index, figuresand a beautiful series of plates.

Marco Amati

Graduate School of the EnvironmentMacquarie University

Moveable feast: The incredible journeys of

the things we eat

Sarah Murray. Aurum, London, 2007. 330 pp.ISBN 10-1-84513-234-3.

When I returned to live in Britain in 2002, araging debate on food miles was under way.Sarah Murray notes at least 3000 pieces on thesubject in English between 1999 and 2007. Thedebate is important to New Zealand, oftenmisrepresented as a country with large agri-cultural subsidies but certainly many milesaway. I have joined the debate at a local leveland Lincoln University has made a major buttoo little publicized contribution in moving thematter on from simple food miles to carbon orenergy impact. Helen Clark’s visit helped butthe New Zealand High Commission does notappear much concerned – no reply to a letter– and likewise parliamentarians. Murray’s bookshould help even though in a spectacularlybroad approach, New Zealand receives modestcoverage. We are put in our place in the bestsense.

The author is a journalist, a frequent con-tributor to the

Financial Times.

The quality ofwriting and content is what you would expectand there is an extensive bibliography and asadly modest index. There are 12 chapters andeach examines a food trade and uses it as avehicle for wider discussion: olives, salmon,tomatoes, chewing gum, curry, bananas, yoghurt,wine, tea, strawberries, grain and maize. Orin other words these are historical geographiesof, for example, containerization (the salmonchapter), refrigeration (bananas), and lesspredictably of Bombay’s

dobwallah

systemand movingly of the Berlin airlift and howchewing gum fitted into it. The emphases areevident: the long history of long distance tradein basic foods, grain in the Inca Empire forexample; the role of technology, barrels arriveas early as 3000

bc

(though this is perhaps theweakest chapter); and of organization – Berlinand Bombay. The general tenor is both incisiveand entertaining pointing out the virtues, thevices and the inevitability and dangers of theearly 21st century version of practices initiatedseveral millennia ago.

The epilogue summarizes. Local seasonalproduce when available is best but frequent

Book Reviews

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© 2008 The AuthorsJournal compilation

© 2008 The New Zealand Geographical Society

car trips to farm shops are not a good idea. Foodtransport has many beneficial dimensions: itwas at the roots of the demographic transition;it can be a liberating force but also a risk for bothindividuals and communities as producers andconsumers, the New Zealand meat and dairytrades for example. As consumers we shouldprefer the large container ship over the jumbojet, rail over road, and centralized but diversifiedmarket places (superstores plus farmersmarkets plus specialist shops) over dispersedretailing. Central place theory rides again!

Two issues have entered the arena since thisbook was written, the prospect of scarcer anddearer food driven by Asian demand (as wellperhaps as by climate change) and the impactof biofuels on land use. There is scope here foran updated treatment of the topic. The book isnot a text but its existence ought to be madeknown to geography students, especially thosewho have already made up their minds one wayor the other. This is a debate that is not goingto go away and to which we should contribute.For ours is after all a pre-eminently globaldiscipline. The eyes of the fool may be in theends of the earth, but heaven help us if thegeographer is not to be found there too.

Peter Perry

Sherborne, Dorsetand

Department of GeographyUniversity of Canterbury

Sociological perspectives of organic

agriculture

Georgina Holt and Matthew Reed (eds). CABInternational, Wallingford, 2006. 309 pp. ISBN1-84593-038-X.

This book provides a sociological perspectiveon recent trends in organic agriculture asone of the alternatives to conventional agri-culture. It is a collection of 18 essays by socialscientists, primarily sociologists, focusing ondifferent aspects of organic agriculture andthe institutional, cultural and regional contextsthat influence production in a selection ofwestern economies.

The book aims ‘to consider the role thatrural sociology has in explaining one of thenewest, and for some people, most challeng-ing, developments in food and farming –organic agriculture’ (p. 2). Thus, it includes aconsideration of theoretical perspectives andmethodologies that have been applied to thesociological study of organic agriculture aswell as 16 case studies from different parts ofthe world (Ireland, the UK, Denmark, France,Norway, the USA, Australia, New Zealandand Brazil).

The introductory chapter provides a briefhistory of the rise of organic agriculture as aphilosophically informed social movement. Asdemand for organic food has grown, organicfarming has experienced new social impera-tives of corporatist regulation and marketing,and pressures of mass production. The ways inwhich these pressures impinge on farmers areremarkably similar from one country to another.As the editors note, ‘the biggest questionsthat face organic agriculture at present are notabout farm management or farming systemsbut about creating viable businesses, winningover consumers, struggles over policy and thevery meaning of organic in a complex anddynamic world’ (p. 3).

Five general themes are discerniblethrough the book: change and persistence inthe philosophies of organic agriculture as a socialmovement; consumer attitudes and valuestowards organic production, and parallel policyinitiatives by state or corporate organizations;the ways in which social and economicinstitutions impinge on organic producers, andthe response of organic producers to state orcorporate regulation; methodologies of studyby rural sociologists; and regional variationsof organic production. Together the essayshighlight the diversity of theoretical perspec-tives and methodological approaches by ruralsociologists.

The essays share the common perspectivethat organic agriculture is a social phenomenon,embedded within society-wide institutions.Organic farming is perceived as a nexus of socialpractices within related social, economic andpolitical institutions which link individualsto family and local community at one level andstate policies and global food systems at theother.