Frances Moore Lappé

Anna Lappe speaking Frances Moore Lappé is the author or coauthor of sixteen books. Her 1971 three-million-copy bestseller Diet for a Small Planet continues to awaken readers to the human-made causes of hunger and the power of our everyday choices to create the world we want.

Together, Lappé and her daughter Anna Lappé lead the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education to bring democracy to life. With her daughter, she is also co-founder of the Small Planet Fund, channeling resources to democratic social movements worldwide. In September of 2007, the Institute’s publishing arm released Lappé’s newest book, Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, & Courage in a World Gone Mad.

In 1975, with Joseph Collins, Lappé launched the California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). Its publications continue to shape the international debate on the root causes of hunger and poverty. The Institute was described by The New York Times as one of the nation’s “most respected food think tanks.”

In 1990, Lappé co-founded the Center for Living Democracy, a ten-year initiative to help accelerate the spread of democratic innovations. Lappé served as founding editor of the Center’s American News Service, which placed solutions-oriented news stories in almost 300 newspapers nationwide.

In 2006, Lappé released Democracy’s Edge: Choosing to Save our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life (Wiley/Jossey-Bass). The book, which seeks to ignite debate about the very meaning of democracy, is now being used in many college and university courses.

In 2000-2001 Lappé was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and during October, 2007 she was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Suffolk University in Boston.

Lappé's articles and opinion pieces have appeared in publications as diverse as the New York Times, O Magazine and Christian Century. Her television and radio appearances have included a PBS special with Bill Moyers, the Today Show, CBS Radio, and National Public Radio.

Lappé is a sought after public speaker and has received seventeen honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions. In 1987 in Sweden, Lappé became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the “Alternative Nobel,” for her “vision and work healing our planet and uplifting humanity.” In 2006, she received an award for “Lifetime Service to Increase Planetary Awareness,” granted to her and to biologist E.O. Wilson, at the AltWheels Alternative Transportation Festival. In 2007, Diet for a Small Planet was chosen among 75 Books by Women whose Words have Changed the World.

In 2006 she was chosen as a founding councilor of the Hamburg-based World Future Council. She is a member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture and the National Advisory Council of the Union of Concerned Scientists. She serves as an advisor to the Calgary Centre for Global Community and on the board of David Korten’s People-Centered Development Forum. Lappé is a contributing editor to Yes! Magazine.

Historian Howard Zinn writes: “A small number of people in every generation are forerunners, in thought, action, spirit, who swerve past the barriers of green and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us. Lappé is one of those.” The Washington Post says: “Some of the twentieth century’s most vibrant activist thinkers have been American women – Margaret Mead, Jeanette Rankin, Barbara Ward, Dorothy Day – who took it upon themselves to pump life into basic truths. Frances Moore Lappé is among them.”


The Getting a Grip blog always has the latest news, links, and thoughts from Frances and the Small Planet team.

Watch Frances discuss the food/democracy crisis on Democracy NOW!

Watch a short film about Frances shown at the James Beard Foundation Awards Humanitarian of the Year Award ceremony. Read her acceptance speech here.

Read and comment on Frances's Huffington Post blogs.

Read Frances's reflections on 1968, "the year I decided to find out why people were hungry in the world," in AARP the Magazine. An extended on-line interview can also be found here.

See Frances in Gourmet magazine as one of "25 People Who Changed Food in America".

Watch Frances in "A Hungry Planet," a special segment on the world hunger crisis from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's evening news broadcast, "The National."

Listen to the May 4th podcast of CBC Sunday Edition featuring Frances on food prices and poverty.

Visit Anna's "Take a Bite out of Climate Change" website.

Hear Anna on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show, discussing whether higher food prices might mean that we'll eat healthier food.

Read Anna weighing in on "Some Good News on Food Prices" (NY Times).

Read "The Only Fitting Tribute," Frances's take on the New Deal written for The Nation and found also on CommonDreams.org.

Read "Hanging with Frances Moore Lappé" (Boston Globe)

Read Anna's op-ed in Seattle Post Intelligencer on food and climate change; hear her on Seattle radio

Watch Anna as your guru for fair trade and safe beauty products on Howdini.com

• Thanks to everyone who made our annual fund-raising gala a success! Watch The Invisible Revolution, a film about those your investment helps to support.

Watch Getting a Grip on Money & Politics, Frances' & Anthony's film about the "Best Kept Secret in America!"

Read Anna's blog as she continues the call to Eat Grub!

• Frances's first book, Diet for a Small Planet, was chosen among 75 Books by Women whose Words have Changed the World

Read a prepublication version of Frances' 'World Hunger: Roots and Remedies,' from the upcoming Oxford title A Sociology of Food and Nutrition.


Read more about Frankie’s book, Democracy’s Edge

Read “Creating Real Prosperity” by Frances, in Yes! Magazine and AlterNet

Read "Big Apple to go Trans-Fat Free" by Anna in Alternet

Read News from Brazil’s Zero-Hunger Campaign

• Hear Anna with Ruth Reichl on The Leonard Lopate show.

• Listen to Frances on PBS Now

Email us for info about volunteering for SPI.

 

Thursday, July 24, 2008, 5:00PM
Keynote Speech
Vermont Law School's Food, Fuel, and the Future of Farming Conference
South Royalton, VT
Anna

Saturday, July 26, 2008, 3:30-5:00PM
Workshop with Frances Moore Lappé
Kickapoo Country Fair
Organic Valley National Headquarters
One Organic Way
La Farge, WI
Anna

More...


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