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Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation Paperback – November 20, 2007

by William F. Engdahl (Author)

4.7 178 ratings

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This skillfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish its control over the very basis of human survival, the provision of our daily bread. Control the food and you control the people. This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms. The author reveals a World of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace.

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If you want to learn why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist... --Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia

If you want to learn why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist... --Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia

The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence... --Anton Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria

What is so frightening about Engdahl's vision of the world is that it is so real. In this new age of free markets, everything science, commerce, agriculture and even seeds have become weapons in the hands of a few global corporation barons and their political fellow travelers. --Dr. Arpad Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute, Scotland.

The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence... --Anton Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria

If you want to learn why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist... --Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia

The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence... --Anton Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria

From the Back Cover

What is so frightening about Engdahl's vision of the world is that it is so real. Although our civilization has been built on humanistic ideals, in this new age of "free markets", everything-- science, commerce, agriculture and even seeds-- have become weapons in the hands of a few global corporation barons and their political fellow travelers. To achieve world domination, they no longer rely on bayonet-wielding soldiers. All they need is to control food production. (Dr. Arpad Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute Institute, Scotland) If you want to learn about the socio-political agenda --why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World-- you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist... (Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia) The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence... (Anton Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Global Research; First Edition (November 20, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 360 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0973714727
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0973714722
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #588,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #167 in Biotechnology (Books)
- #395 in Genetics (Books)
- #1,777 in Communication & Media Studies

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4.7 178 ratings

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F. William Engdahl
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F. William Engdahl is a political economist and founder of Engdahl Strategic Risk Consulting, providing geopolitical strategic risk advice to companies and financial institutions. He has specialized for more than thirty seven years in geopolitical analysis of global events, and is an American citizen living and working in Germany since 1985.
Mr. Engdahl was a lecturer in economics at the Rhein-Main University in Germany and was a Visiting Professor in Political Economy at Beijing University of Chemical Technology.
He authored the international best-selling book on oil and geopolitics, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics, published as well in German, French, English, Chinese, Russian, Czech, Korean, Turkish, Croatian, Slovenian. In 2010 he published Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century and in 2013 a new edition of his best-selling Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation completing a trilogy on the power of oil, food and money control. His book, Target China: How Washington and Wall Street Plan to Cage the Asian Dragon appeared in 2014, and The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy was released in summer 2015 and also was an international bestseller.
After a degree in politics from Princeton University (USA), and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholm, Engdahl worked as an independent economist and research journalist in New York and later in Europe, covering the fields of energy policy worldwide; global trade; EU food policies, the grain trade; IMF policy; Third World debt issues; the politics of hedge funds and the 2007-2015 dollar crisis.
He contributes regularly to a number of international publications and electronic media on economics and political affairs including the US Coast to Coast AM, Asia Times, FinancialSense.com, The Real News, Russia Today (RT) TV, Rossiya 1, Asia Inc., CCTV in China, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, European Banker and Globus in Croatia.
Mr. Engdahl has been a featured speaker at numerous international conferences including the keynote speech to the 2014 Third Nishan Forum on World Civilizations in Jinan, China; London Centre for Energy Policy Studies Annual Retreat, as personal guest of Hon. Sheikh Zaki Yamani; Turkish-Eurasian Business Council of Istanbul, Global Investors’ Forum (GIF), Montreaux Switzerland; Bank Negara Indonesia; the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies; the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Energy Symposium, and Croatian Chamber of Commerce and Economics.
He currently lives in Germany, working as a consulting political risk economist for major European banks and private investors and writing and lecturing. A sample of his writings is available at www.williamengdahl.com.
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MA

An informative, factual wild ride accounting that reads like a good spy novel

Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2012

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I live in California, where we are to vote on Prop 37 to support our right to know if Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are in the food we eat by requiring food manufacturers to identify GMO's on the Nutrition Fact label. So, I went into the book with some idea of GMO's and that they were bad and big money was behind it.

The pleasant surprise was the way the author puts the subject matter in context and uses scientific references in a way that does not require a PhD to understand. I also liked the examples from nature as well, here are some of my favorites from the book:

Wisdom of the Geese: A farmer in Illinois who's been planting soybeans on his 50 acre field for years and putting up with soybean eating geese who took up residence on a nearby pond. The geese returned every year. Only this one year, the geeseate only from a specific part of his field. As a result of the geese feeding, the soybeans were only ankle high. The geese it seemed were boycotting the other part of the same field where the beans were able to grow waist-high. The reason is that this year, the farmer had tried the new, genetically engineered soybeans. And you could see exactly where they were planted, there was a line right down the middle of his field with the natural beans on one side and the GM beans were untouched.

Similar comments about cows: "If a field contained GM and non-GM maize, cattle would always eat the non-GM first" - GL, Nebraska :A neighbor had been growing Pioneer Bt corn. When the cattle were turned out onto the stalks they just wouldn't eat them" - GS, Montana

There are also many stories of brave scientists who dared to speak out and how they were crucified, how Big Agra has bought and paid for our politicians. There are a very few in Washington D.C. who are not on Monsanto's past, present or potentially future payroll or placed in critical positions at the FDA, EPA, Supreme Court Justice, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Defense at one time or another going back to Dan Quale to now.

The author also provides some excellent ideas of what the reader can do. The book gives informed background and information to help consumers critically evaluate the story lines (or should I say PSA announcements for Big Agra) constantly being presented as "news" in the media. Recommendations on dietary changes based on avoiding GMO food products would be helpful to someone just learning about this subject.

And the author leaves the reader with a powerful message about what to do now that the reader has been given data that is unedited and unsanitized by the Big Agra/Biotech industry. The book is meant to be the foundation for a long discussion as the pro-biotech pro GMO camp is well funded, well positioned in government and they have the power to shut down media coverage that is unfavorable to them. The GMO camp always characterizes anti-GMO people as uninformed, special interest groups who are a bunch of luddites who don't understand the science. After you read this book, those characterizations will certainly not be true.

11 people found this helpful

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Phillip M. Rose

Frankenfoods -- it's worse than you think

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2008

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This book seems at first glance to be primarily about genetically modified organisms (GMO), but is actually a frightening history of the power elite's largely successful attempt to gain control over food and food production. In the last 50 years food has gone from being an agricultural product grown by small farmers, to being a national security concern, to now being a weaponized commodity under the control of a few corporate owners.

Mr. Engdahl lays out his case in a methodical, scholarly, yet riveting manner, much as he did in A Century Of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order . He begins with the GMO Revolution launched by a few powerful corporations, aided and abetted by a cooperative USA government. He then explores the birth of "agribusiness" and the oxymoronic Green Revolution. He monitors the revolving door between corporate advocates of GMO and government officials charged with policing food safety. The Rockefeller brothers' roles in these machinations are painstakingly revealed.

The eugenics movement -- very popular in early to mid-20th century USA until the Nazis lowered its public acceptance -- is shown to be alive and well under the new guises of genetics and molecular biology. I was more surprised by this than anything else in the book, but Mr. Engdahl proves this point beyond dispute. Along these lines, the only part of the book that I felt needed more explanation was the role of Darwinism, actually neo-Darwinism, in molecular biology. One could almost be left with the impression that a belief in evolution has led to the abuses of molecular biology in genetic manipulation. Once Mr. Engdahl got that far into the discussion, I wish that he had made a brief mention of the symbiogenesis interpretation of evolution now challenging the neo-Darwinists, e.g., in the books by Lynn Margulis. ( Acquiring Genomes: The Theory of the Origins of the Species is one good example.) I'm not a scientist, but I would tend to think that a subscriber to the symbiogenesis interpretation would be less likely to want to create Frankenfoods.

What motivates the Genetic Manipulators, huge profits and control over the world's food production? As usual with the power elite, it's not just about the money, it's about power and control, but with a particular goal in mind. That goal is an elitist Utopia; a modern world much as it is, only with a whole lot fewer people, especially poor dark-skinned people who live in resource rich places like Africa, South America and parts of Asia. Complete control over food production is one of the primary means to this end, ethno-specific diseases being another. I had read this assertion before, but regarded it as the rantings of right-wing loonies until I read this book.

Mr. Engdahl is a regular contributor to on-line journals on the topic of geopolitics.

42 people found this helpful

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Eternal Howl

A feast of corruption and betrayal in the name of Genetics (Eugenics)

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2009

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A disturbing exposé on the manipulation of a few to gain global dominance through something we often take for granted: Food.

Engdahl offers up a banquet of information pertaining to the relationship between eugenics, genetics, the impact and importance genetic modification of our food is having on our society on a micro and macro level. For those that are pro-GM, this is not a book written by someone with an axe to grind on interfering with nature and perceived scientific progress, but rather, this is a well researched volume of information that explains how the likes of the Rockefellers (and their 'non-profit' organisations), Kissinger and the big agri-corps manipulated people and produce by promising great results, covering up bad ones and then turning poor farmers into serfs.

This exposure shows in a nutshell how and why wealthy American Elites were able to manipulate the government into burying research, backing their disguised eugenics ideas and churning out new organisations to change the face of agriculture into agribusiness. Doesn't affect you because you're not a farmer? You eat: therefore it does. Not American? The information put forth in this research affects almost every living thing on the face of this planet and it's about to get worse.

There is too much in this book to relay in a simple review.

This is an absolute must read and I have not seen it appear for sale at traditional bookstores. Too hot to handle?

16 people found this helpful

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brandon savoie

MUST READ FOR ALL !!

Reviewed in Canada on May 10, 2015

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Great book! Very straight forward , concrete facts that are explained and developed. Must read!!

2 people found this helpful

Patricia Engel

Seeds of destruction

Reviewed in Germany on March 24, 2014

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So werden die Konzerne reich und wir arm und krank. So dumm können wir nicht sein oder gar feige dass wir die Augen schliessen und das einfach geschehen lassen!

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Francisca

Not at all what I expected!

Reviewed in France on June 13, 2012

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I intended to read this book for quite a while, so when I finally ordered it I was quite excited! I haven't yet finished reading it but I can already say that it didn't live up to my expectations, not in the least! To be honest I find it quite boring and that is the reason why it is taking me a lot longer to read it! I have read a bit less than half but till now it seems to me that the author is only trying to fill pages, going around, around and around and never quite getting to the subject. I am very interested in the subject of genetic manipulation but this is not a book I would advise to anybody. I won't say that there isn't any useful information but so far not really on genetic manipulation. As far as the role of the US in World War II I would advise you to read Nazi Nexus: America's Corporate Connections to Hitler's Holocaust rather than this book.

The author also seems to be very negative as far as population control goes but I see it differently! Of course I wouldn't advocate going around sterilizing people against their will or killing people but letting the population grow like it is growing now will lead to disaster! A few decades ago a big effort was made in the Western world to teach people that less children meant a better life and they achieved their goal without too much effort. What did they do then? Turn things around and decide that after all they needed a lot of children to pay for the social security of the elderly (as if they hadn't paid for their retirement themselves...). And on the top of that most countries imported a lot of foreigners. So now we live in countries where nature is rapidly disappearing, along with quality of life. People who maybe shouldn't have any children because they are not able to look after them are having babies like there is no tomorrow. Even gay couples and infertile people are all of a sudden producing great amounts of children. In countries like Holland there is a debate going on whether a mother who has been in trouble for not being able to look after the children she has should be allowed to have more. Yes, I am pro sexual education that teaches people to stop putting more children in this world than they can care for! And so much for eugenics... first they wanted a super race, now we allow anybody into our countries so much so that one day white people will be wiped out. And the fact that we help people with health problems, sometimes life threatening illnesses, to reproduce and keep very ill babies alive creates a very weak generation, many of whom won't be able to have children either (it is known now that at least boys whose fathers are infertile will often be infertile as well!). So... I clearly don't think that population control is only a thing invented by the US in order to keep all the resources to themselves (anyway, for a long time they haven't been working on reducing population anywhere, not even in their own country because they too import just anybody)!

That said I am still interested in reading more about GM foods because I think we should avoid them like the pest so any suggestion will be highly appreciated (the idea that seeds terminate themselves in order to make farmers buy more from big companies is very creepy too)! A book I very much enjoyed and which provided me with a wealth of information was John Humphry's Great Food Gamble . If I change my mind till the end of the book I will add an update but I doubt it.....

One person found this helpful

bucksman

Do you eat? if so, read this

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 24, 2011

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Well - difficult to know where to start...
The main thrust of this book is that a few members of the elite are up to their usual shenanigans of wanting to control the rest of us through vicarious means. The last step in the chain is to control food. As the world's population grows ever greater, the demand on land and animals to produce greater and greater amounts of food increases. It becomes apparent that certain vested interests have realised this for some time (read decades), and have spent billions pushing the GM agenda through for years. The manipulation of statistics that prove that GM crops are safe takes your breath away as well as the discrediting of any critic that stands in the way.
Early on in the book, Engdahl explains how many of those involved in the creation of this industry were also behind organisations who were strong advocates of eugenics. This is the worrying part; they genuinely do believe they are almost a breed apart.
The sheer audacity of the people mentioned who wish to control the food supply, for no other reasons than
* Making even more money - even though the individuals concerned via their financial arms have the capacity to print it at will.
* Manage the population the way they want it to be managed. They need to be in charge and to hell with democracy.
After reading this, you will realise why arable land deemed organic, and the crops grown on it command such a healthy premium. It would be nice for people to start linking the growth of these GM food stuffs, along with their somewhat unhealthy addition to powerful agri-chemicals to the decline in bees. I note from the current Private Eye (19 Jan '11), the bending of facts has already started.

15 people found this helpful

Leo Winter

Get This

Reviewed in Canada on March 9, 2016

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Great reading from the expert again

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Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation Paperback – November 20, 2007

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