Breaking New Ground: A Personal History
When a drought-induced famine threatened India in the mid-1960s, perhaps no single person was more responsible for raising the alarm and prompting U.S. leaders to send food relief than Brown, then a little-known staff member for the secretary of agriculture during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.  Since then, Brown has written prolifically on food shortages, founded the highly respected Worldwatch and Earthwatch Institutes, and received widespread recognition as one of the world’s leading environmentalists.  Now in his late seventies, Brown was reluctantly persuaded by colleagues to pen this engaging memoir charting his influence on reshaping international agriculture policies.  Brown begins with his austere upbringing in rural New Jersey, working on the family farm and growing his own tomatoes, which led to his life-changing participation in a farmer’s exchange program with India, where Brown witnessed food shortages firsthand, spurring his subsequent career. While Brown himself demurs that he’s hardly a born writer, his personal account is straightforwardly captivating and provides invaluable insight into the mind and heart of a true contemporary environmental hero. --Carl Hays