Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology

US: Zed Books, 1993. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Vandana Shiva has established herself as a leading independent thinker and voice for the South in that critically important nexus where questions of d evelopment strategy, the environment and the posititon of women in society coincide. In this new volume, she brings together her thinking on the prote ction of biodiversity, the implications of biotechnology, and the consequen ces for agriculture of the global pre-eminence of Western-style scientific knowledge. In lucid and accessible fashion, she examines the current threats to the pl anet's biodiversity and the environmental and human consequences of its ero sion and replacement by monocultural production. She shows how the new Biod iversity Convention has been gravely undermined by a mixture of diplomatic dilution during the process of negotiation and Northern hi-tech interests m aking money out of the new biotechnologies. She explains what these technol ogies involve and gives examples of their impact in practice. She questions their claims to improving natural species for the good of all and highligh ts the ethical and environmental problems posed. Underlying her arguments is the view that the North's particular approach to scientific understanding has led to a system of monoculture in agriculture - a model that is not being foisted on the South, displacing its societies' ecologically sounder, indigenous and age-old experiences of truly sustainable food cultivation, forest management and animal husbandry. This rapidly accelerating p.