No, Ken, I didn't, save the TLS review (which was much better, IMO), but
here is an article about the book.  You might want to read fast.  :-)

The book is _Holy Cow: Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions_, by D.N. Jha,
Professor of History, University of Delhi.

The Hindu (Online Edition of India's National Newspaper)
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2001/08/14/stories/13140833.htm


And, no, Amadeus, I don't think the work is a *justification* of someone who
wishes to eat beef.  I think it's a well-researched text by a scholar who
dispels the pervasive myth that, historically, Hindus did not eat
beef--because they did--and the complex political and socio-religious
reasons why they gave it up.   It's easy for successive generations of any
homogeneous group to lose cultural contexts in the mists of time and come to
accept rigid, handed-down beliefs as truth ("That's the way it's always been
done, Son.") that turn out to be false when the past is sufficiently
uncovered.  Of course the work "sounds" like heresy and is threatening to
modern Hindus who have lost the truth of their distant dietary past.  But
having accurate knowledge of the past does not mean the author or those who
appreciate his scholarship have a lack of sympathy for the Hindus.  Indeed,
I admire many tenets of the religion, if not necessarily all the religious
practices.

Theola