SCIENCES

The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817–1921

by Adam D. Shprintzen
Univ. of North Carolina. Oct. 2013. 336p. illus. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781469608914. $39.95; ebk. ISBN 9781469608921. COOKERY
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Shprintzen (editor, Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington) taps into his expertise as an academic historian (and his curiosity as a recently converted vegetarian) to research the early history of the U.S. vegetarian movement. He traces the origin of the movement to 1817, the year that leaders of the Bible Christian Church, a vegetarian sect, immigrated to the United States from England. Using the Civil War as the fulcrum for movement activity, Shprintzen documents antebellum vegetarians who saw their way of life intertwined with a broad array of social causes, abolition being chief among them. Vegetarians post-Civil War were more concerned with individual health, strength, and social mobility, including representation at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.
VERDICT This well-researched and accessible work is recommended for readers of U.S. social history and for vegetarians interested in knowing that the roots of their movement go deeper than the publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation and the founding of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Fans of culinary history books such as Laura Shapiro's Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America will also find much to love here.
Reviewed by Mary Schons, Hammond P.L., IN , Sep 01, 2013
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