Vegetarians + Revolutionaries = ???

Tristram Stuart – The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism From 1600 to Modern Times (WW Norton, 2006) 613.26209 STU.
This is a monumental book! 446 pages plus nearly 200(!) pages of bibliography, index and notes. Perhaps this is the first serious attempt at this type of history. At least it is the first that I know of.
There is definitely a lot of really interesting material in this book. I've found it very difficult to find information about vegetarianism and the English revolution, and this book is definitely a good start. It has a good chapter on Robert Crab (Chapter 3), the mystical revolutionary, vegetarian propagandist and hermit, and colleague of Thomas Tany. Also a chapter on John Robins the vegetarian prophet and sectarian mystic (Chapter 2). Chapter Five is a discussion of Thomas Tryon, another vegetarian propagandist on the sectarian left, and chapter Six is about John Evelyn, a vegetarian Royalist. Throughout this section Stuart does an excellent job contextualizing the ideas that influenced these figures, and the revolutionary period in general. First class. This is roughly the first one-hundred pages in the book.
I must confess that the next two-hundred or so pages held much less interest for me. The were bits and pieces that were fascinating. Some very interesting material about the influence of Hindu and Jain vegetarianism on Europe, not to mention speculation about Pythagoras (the ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician and vegetarian) and his influence on India (or vice versa). A lot of this part of the book is about the history of various vegetarian medical arguments. Humans are naturally herbivores, vegetarian diets cure disease, vegetarianism is a return to edenic perfection etc. I'm not criticizing Stuart for including this material or saying he did a poor job. Far from it, it was meticulously researched and well written. Clearly this is material that belongs in this book. It is simply not that interesting to me.
Chapter Twenty-One (p.295) is entitled “The Cry of Nature: Killing in the Name of Animal Rights in the French Revolution”. Oh hell yeah! It covers the life of John Oswald, Scottish atheist, vegetarian and revolutionary. In another interesting example of the reverse influence of imperialism, Oswald became a convinced revolutionary and anti-imperialist while serving in the English army in India. Appalled by the brutal treatment of the Indian people, he deserted and went native, becoming vegetarian in the process. He later walked back to Europe and was perhaps the first European to spend time with the Kurds in Turkey. Oswald later traveled to France to help foment revolution and was a conduit of communication between British and French Revolutionaries. Oswald was also a major influence on the French revolution in two ways. First he popularized vegetarianism, which was seen as a revolutionary challenge to the decadence and waste of the aristocracy, and the second was the pike. He trained the revolutionaries in the use of the pike (a long spear), and later died leading a regiment of pike-men (the regiment had included women, Oswald was in favor of women fighting in militias, but his second in command had sent the women home in Oswald's absence) against Royalists.
Chapter Twenty-Two is about the Marquis de Valady. Valady was an fascinating figure, who denounced his birth-right and threw his lot in with the revolutionaries. He was a vegetarian as well. He was executed during the terror.
The next few chapters trace the effects of the French revolution on radicals in Britain, as well as the vegetarian movement (the two movements intersecting in many cases). Vegetarianism was looked on with extreme suspicion and was associated with political radicalism. Prison brought together many disparate radicals who otherwise would never have met one another. Radical printers were brought together with authors they had never met. Fruitful partnerships were formed in some cases. Of course a huge number of these radicals simply died in prison from Typhus or any number of other diseases. There is a lot of really vital stuff in this section about radicals identifying with the revolutionaries from the 1640s, the Diggers, the Fifth-Monarchists and others (p.339). There are also striking similarities between Lord George Gordon, self styled biblical prophet and alleged reincarnation of Moses, and Thomas Tany.
There is a chapter (Twenty Six) that covers Percy Bysshe Shelley, the English poet, who was the son in law of William Godwin (often credited as the father of anarchism). Shelley's wife was of course Mary Shelley, the daughter of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Frankenstein. They and their friends were vegetarians, sometimes nudists, and sex radicals.
In the final two chapters there are discussions of Peter Kropotkin, Elisee Reclus, Tolstoy, Emerson, Thoreau, Gandhi, Wagner, and Hitler. Pretty interesting stuff.
Stuart has done an amazing job here, pouring through mountains of source material, and writing a wonderful cultural history of vegetarianism. It whets the appetite for more work in this area. I'd love to see a book (or six) about the intersections of vegetarianism and the revolutionary movements. I know that the confluence doesn't stop in the French revolution. Reclus was a communard in the Paris Commune, and French anarchism at the turn of the twentieth century has a decidedly vegetarian flavor. The Bonnot Gang and many of the other illegalists were vegetarian tea-totalers. There were vegetarians in the Spanish revolution. And certainly the last few generations of anarchism, at least since the British anti-nuclear movement of the late seventies and then Crass and Peace Punk. This was also happening at the same time as the roots of the Animal Liberation Front. There was also a strong vegetarian influence on the utopian socialist experiments in North America, which continued with the back to the land movement in the seventies and intentional communities today. I have yet to pour through the bibliography of this book, and perhaps it will turn up more material in this area. For now I want to thank Tristram Stuart for this excellent book.

You could also check out:
Colin Spencer - The heretic's feast : a history of vegetarianism 179. 3 SPE