Description
Book SynopsisJulia Hauser explores the global history of vegetarianism from the mid-nineteenth century to the early Cold War. She demonstrates that vegetarians in India and the West shared notions of purity, which drew some toward not only internationalism and anticolonialism but also racism, nationalism, and violence.
Trade ReviewVegetarianism’s political and ecological imperatives have long wanted for a historian capable of excavating their roots. Julia Hauser offers an electric, wholly original account of the nationalist and international politics, racial paradigms, and unexpected encounters between German, Swiss, American, and Indian thinkers as they crafted modern vegetarianism’s moral stance. -- Benjamin Siegel, author of
Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern IndiaCentral today to many modern lifestyles and movements, vegetarianism is in fact rooted in a deep history, now masterfully explored by Julia Hauser. Rich in detail, often surprising, and written in clear prose, this study is sure to challenge established notions of West and East, modern and traditional, left and right. Much food for thought! -- Paul Nolte, Free University Berlin
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. In Search of Purity: European Vegetarians and Their Spheres of Projection
2. Evolution, Cows, and Communalism: Vegetarianism and the Colonial Encounter in India, ca. 1880–1912
3. The Chicago Effect: Internationalizing Vegetarianism
4. Between Buddha, Gandhi, Sufism, and Militant Masculinity: Relating to South Asia in Interwar German and Swiss Vegetarianism
5. Race, Nation, and Peace: (Re-)Internationalizing Vegetarianism After the Second World War
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
