The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad: A True Story of Science and Sacrifice in a City under Siege
by Simon Parkin
War throws into sharp relief what’s important to us. It forces us to decide what we save and what we sacrifice. Simon Parkin takes us to the darkest days of the Nazi siege of Leningrad, where a group of botanists faced a terrible dilemma. Having amassed the world’s greatest seed bank in the hope of ending famine for all humans one day, they now guarded their vast stash of nutritious specimens at the heart of a city that was starving to death. Artfully told, this is a beautiful and harrowing tale of science, politics and principle in times of war.
Recommendations from our site
“This book made me cry! It is a beautifully told and brilliantly researched book about what happened to the world’s first seed bank during the Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War. Leningrad was under siege for almost 900 days. In the first winter there was no food, and millions of people starved to death from this blockade. But the scientists who were looking after the seed bank protected the plant materials in the seed bank and didn’t eat them. They saved the seeds and tubers because they saw them as the future of agriculture.” Read more...
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