A review by babs_jellymuck
The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America by Hannah Nordhaus
4.0
This book was extremely informative on the lifestyle of America's pollinators. I learned a lot about bee life, the symbiotic relationship between mono-croppers and pollinators, and the perils that face today's bees--enough to want to continue learning, and possibly try out my own hive someday. I also felt that the writing flow was engaging...
...BUT, I have to mention, there were times in this book where POC were brought up in a seemingly ethnocentric way and it made me raise an eyebrow. For instance, when describing life in the Modesto, she writes:"...there is little rural romance here. The valley smells like a brew of fertilizer, chemicals and manure, and it hosts an eternal ebb and flow of Hispanic migrant workers." I'm probably being sensitive, but to me the lack of "rural romance" is probably due to the wasteland left behind by large-scale agriculture, not migrant workers. There was also a scene where one of Miller's employees, a transplant from South Africa, is getting trashed in a bar and talking about how much he hated "black people." The writer bowed out of the conversation (and went as far as to mention the episode in this book), but there was no mention of any consequences from this behavior on part of Miller. It was only when the police complained to him that the same worker trashed a donated park bench by FFA that he was fired. So either it was the straw that broke the camel's back, or the primary concern here is the bench.
...BUT, I have to mention, there were times in this book where POC were brought up in a seemingly ethnocentric way and it made me raise an eyebrow. For instance, when describing life in the Modesto, she writes:"...there is little rural romance here. The valley smells like a brew of fertilizer, chemicals and manure, and it hosts an eternal ebb and flow of Hispanic migrant workers." I'm probably being sensitive, but to me the lack of "rural romance" is probably due to the wasteland left behind by large-scale agriculture, not migrant workers. There was also a scene where one of Miller's employees, a transplant from South Africa, is getting trashed in a bar and talking about how much he hated "black people." The writer bowed out of the conversation (and went as far as to mention the episode in this book), but there was no mention of any consequences from this behavior on part of Miller. It was only when the police complained to him that the same worker trashed a donated park bench by FFA that he was fired. So either it was the straw that broke the camel's back, or the primary concern here is the bench.