The Bloodless Revolution: Radical Vegetarians and the Discovery of India

by Tristram Stuart

How Western Christianity and Eastern philosophy merged to spawn a political movement that had the prohibition of meat at its core.

The Bloodless Revolution is a pioneering history of puritanical revolutionaries, European Hinduphiles, and visionary scientists who embraced radical ideas from the East and conspired to overthrow Western society's voracious hunger for meat. At the heart of this compelling history are the stories of John Zephaniah Holwell, survivor of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and John Stewart and John Oswald, who traveled to India in the eighteenth century, converted to the animal-friendly tenets of Hinduism, and returned to Europe to spread the word. Leading figures of the Enlightenment among them Rousseau, Voltaire, and Benjamin Franklin gave intellectual backing to the vegetarians, sowing the seeds for everything from Victorian soup kitchens to contemporary animal rights and environmentalism.

Spanning across three centuries with reverberations to our current world, The Bloodless Revolution is a stunning debut from a young historian with enormous talent and promise. 24 pages of color illustrations.

Genres: History, Food, Nonfiction, Vegan, India, Animals, Vegetarian

625 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Tristram Stuart is the winner of the international environmental award, The Sophie Prize 2011, for his fight against food waste. Following the critical success of Tristram’s first book, The Bloodless Revolution (2006), ‘a genuinely revelatory contribution to the history of human ideas’, Tristram has become a renowned campaigner, working in several countries to help improve the environmental and social impact of food production. His latest international prize-winning book, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal (Penguin, 2009), revealed that Western countries waste up to half of their food, and that tackling this problem is one of the simplest ways of reducing pressure on the environment and on global food supplies. Tristram set up the Feeding the 5000 (www.feeding5k.org), the flagship event of a global food waste campaign where 5000 members of the public are given a free lunch using only ingredients that otherwise would have been wasted. Held twice in Trafalgar Square (2009 and 2011), the Feeding the 5000 team have now launched replica events and campaigns internationally, and has now been commissioned to work globally in partnership with the European Commission and the United Nations Environment Program. Tristram continues to work with a range of NGOs, governments, and private enterprises internationally to tackle the global food waste scandal.

Reviews

[Trilety Wade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected at all - much better and much more of a focus on history. It provides a history of vegetarianism dating from about 15th century to mid 1940's. I would only read if you really appreciate non-fiction as it is dense with dates, figures, theories, etc - but oh so good. The author is provides a large scope of history in a clear manner - and I am amazed by all the tidbits that still stand out in my mind - ie Adam Smith discussed the economic value of vegetarianism in Wealth of Nations and revolutionaries in France, the sans-culottes, promoting vegetarianism as a principle in their revolution against the rich/monarchy. Anyway, quite a good read - and you will learn a wealth of informaiton on Indian history and culture as well.

[Mia]

Naked, dancing, veggie communists, seizing private property for communal farms...oh, yeah, in the 1600s...pretty fun. Tolstoy inspiring Ghandi...good stuff.

[Vio · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me forever to finish, this is one epic and detailed book. Fascinating, who would have thought that vegetarianism existed in the 1600 hundreds! Not for the faint hearted due to the length, but so very good.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's books like this that remind me why I like cultural history so much. This was a great read. I couldn't put it down. I would take a look at it even if you think you're not interested in vegetarianism. You may find your more interested than you would think. Very nice bibliography too.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

An exhausting review of the recent history of vegetarianism, focusing primarily on Western culture. And yes, I do mean exhausting, not exhaustive. Although it is thoroughly researched, with over 200 pages of back matter, it is repetitive and tedious. By page 250, I was still mired in the mid 1700s and increasingly bored- one can only read so many times about the presumed history of diet viewed through the lens of Judeo-Christianity (meat was not permitted by god before the flood in Noah's time) with references to Pythagoras and Brahmins thrown in contrasted with the argument of most of Western society declaring that meat is Necessary and Healthy before the mind simply tunes out. I gave up shortly after page 400, having only just reached Thoreau. I just didn't care anymore. I won't give the book one star, which is normally what I do with books so bad I quit them, but the second star is mostly for effort. Approach with caution- I would only recommend this one for someone seriously interested in vegetarianism and critiques thereof.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read about 200 pages of this 400+ page tome. Not only is it dry AF, it's disgustingly Eurocentric. Do you want to know the history of vegetarianism? Read something else. Do you want to know the history of how white Europeans visited India and then spent hundreds of years trying to make vegetarianism seem less "foreign" and more palatable for whites and wasted tons of time and energy trying to reshape biblical interpretations to support their views so they wouldn't get put in stocks or put on trial for their dangerous ideas? Then I guess this book is for you. Some of the philosophical arguments from people like Newton and Voltaire are interesting, but there has to be a book that provides a more comprehensive GLOBAL history.

[Adrienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book begins in the early 1600s and slowly trudges along through to the 1800s. Then the epilogue begins on page 418 quickly tossing out Thoreau, Ghandi, and Hitler. There is brief mention of Singer and two paragraphs that sum up ecologically how we need to think about our eating habits. Often during the first 400 pages, I felt like I was reading the same information over and over again. There were definitely some interesting facts but I suppose I was expecting more discourse on the 1900s. It was an exhausting read; it felt like the author got bored of it himself and just decided to finish abruptly without giving it much thought.

[Jason Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. A little exhausting? Sure, but so is exercise.

[Caleb · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me around two months to trudge through this book, which, as the the sub-title indicates, is a four-hundred-year history of vegetarianism, mostly in Europe and mostly dealing with medical, religious and philosophical aspects of abstaining from meat. It's extremely, exhaustively detailed, and about four-hundred-pages long, enough pages to devote one to each year. There's a lot of fascinating stuff in here, but reading the book to get at it is more like work than something one does for fun. I felt weird reading it and NOT writing a paper on vegetarianism while doing so.

[Aj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched history with a tad too much detail in parts for easy reading, nonetheless a good read ( even if the author is an omnivore). "Modern times" are moving fast concerning acceptance of veganism and scientific evidence, so the last part may date soon.

[Mr_wormwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was this book that finally pushed me towards becoming a vegetarian. Not because it advocates for vegetarianism in any definite way, but because it details how vegetarianism has consistently been a force for opposing mainstream cultural attitudes predominant in the West.

[William Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lol @ white people who bought and sold other people telling themselves and the masses that vegetarianism is for the enlightened. Also, Frances Bacon, the architect of the current feudalist-capitalism and scourge of the commons being a vegetarian for any reason is hilarious to me.

It’s an exhausting book that repeats a lot of information, treads the same ground a few times over. I’m not sure why the chapter on the Politics of Ecology has Hitler in it, as his vegetarianism was for health- combatting the effects of his constant use of meth- and had nothing to do with ecology or really any political ecology.

Grade: C-

[Will White · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel slightly guilty about giving this a 4 instead of a 5. For one thing, I'm an ardent vegan, so I'm always glad to see someone shining light on the vegetarian philosophy, and I learned a tremendous amount about the history of the movement, and how it interacted in various ways with the history of Western colonialism and empire. Super fascinating stuff.

Honestly, I docked the point for overload. This book was a lot, a little too granular and academic for my taste. That's not to say it was dry — I found it well-written from beginning to end. But it just had a little of that feeling that I get from a dissertation, where you're inundated with detail and then given abstract conclusions.

I suppose I just wanted a little more of a narrative treatment of this subject, but again, that's unfair, because it's not like the book was bereft of storytelling. I don't know. It just took me a long time to make it through this book, even though I was interested and basically enjoyed it. I'm sure that's my fault and not the author's.

So for what it IS, this book should get 5 stars; in comparison to what I wanted it to be, it's a 4.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very academic, with a quarter of the pages dedicated to notes and bibliography. The pace needed improvement: much of the first two parts (covering the 17th and 18th centuries) seemed to have repeat ideas, while the 20th century was barely a blip in the epilogue. I was expecting much more about the cultural trends of vegetarianism in "modern times".

That being said, it was interesting to learn about the religious and political inspiration behind and implications of vegetarianism. I plan on reading some of the primary sources cited in this book.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like reading a textbook, very scholarly. I learned a lot about the history of vegetarianism, first as a religious topic, then medical, and finally as ecological. Famous vegetarians include Percy B. Shelley, Hitler, Gandhi (who had become a meat eater until living in London and getting involved with the British vegetarians!).

[Heidi]

This would be a good book to read with someone. Could be dry, academic, but packed full of philosophical, religious, imperial, as well as cultural history around the idea of vegetarianism.

I would be more inclined to read it and enjoy it if I read it slowly over several months, and could have conversations in a group of people about it.

[Katie]

To be honest I have failed to finish this book for the second time and I am not sure if the fault lies with me or with it. It is definitely filled with interesting historical facts, but tends, to my mind, to read more as a collection of anecdotes than a coherent history. That might be what makes me feel not too bad about dipping into it every year or two without finishing it.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

so far i'm really enjoying it! very well researched. and very british-centric (which i like!)

[Noo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is without doubt an extensively-researched and well-written account of the rise of vegetarianism in Europe over the past few centuries. I enjoyed learning more about the ’big players’ within the early vegetarian movement, and didn’t realise quite how far they went to repackage Eastern culture in order to make it more comfortable, familiar and palatable for white Westerners. The book covers topics like early nutritionist advice from medical professionals, the French Revolution, the mysteries of scurvy, meat eating and Biblical justification, and the rise of Nazism.

It’s strange to think back on animal activism in the 16th, 17th & 18th Centuries when there was little scientific evidence to show the benefits of a plant-based diet, and when the study of animal behaviour was in its infancy. It’s even stranger to think that we still use the same lines of reasoning to justify our own eating habits (culture, taste, the Bible, animals being here for us to use, meat for health), despite all the evidence we now have. I appreciated the continual link back to the Eastern idea of ‘ahimsa’ (a respect for all living things and the avoidance of violence).

The book did quite include a lot of repeated content which makes sense if you are approaching it a chapter at a time. I went for the whole hog (so to speak) and found myself skimming the sections that revisited previous points made quite a lot.

All in all a very interesting read with a hell of a lot of research put into it. You can tell the author dedicated a huge amount of time to the project. A recommended read for those that enjoy learning about the collective cultural, ethical and dietary evolution of Western society.

[Joshua Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. Drags a bit towards the end but still amazing 🙌

[Sam Porter · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fascinating history made boring by a laborious writing style.

[Nital Jethalal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting topic, could have done a lot more with it.

[Connor Longaphie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but very very focused on the influence that India and hinduism had on vegetarianism

[Madeleine McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating

I did not know before reading this book, that there were vegetarian and anti-animal cruelty movements in the 17th century. His has been blown wide open for me.

[Amelia O’Halloran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love being vegetarian! I love knowing that none of my reasons are original and have all existed across the globe for hundreds and hundreds of years! I feel very communal!

[Marc Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tristram is an eloquent speaker and writer and in this work tells the big history of vegetarian and vegan diets throughout the world. I have a discussion with him about his books Waste and works on my Video & Audio Podcast Show Inside Ideas should you want to take a deeper dive into the updated life of this Food Waste expert.
https://youtu.be/yMoREqvJX9A

Or check out the links below:
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/ideas-t...
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/inside-...
https://medium.com/inside-ideas/trist...

[Cherie · Rating 1 out of 5]

C- BORING. Some of it was interesting, but the style was super drawn out, wordy, and boring. I didn't learn too many new things b/c it was so barely I could barely absorb it. Sad, b/c so much potential.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading about the quirky lifestyles of these historical eccentrics, many of whom are famous for inventing something brilliant, writing, leading, etc. This book is in no way preachy about a vegetarian diet, but rather reflects on that as a common thread amongst these folks.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

borrrrring

[Kaitron]

I am back to my slow paced, non-suspenseful books while I am in school, but I don't know if even I can make it through this one. I will give it a few more chapters though....