Betting on famine : why the world still goes hungry
Record details
- ISBN: 9781595588494 (hc. : alk. paper)
- ISBN: 1595588493 (hc. : alk. paper)
- ISBN: 9781595588616 (e-book)
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Physical Description:
print
xvii, 286 pages ; 22 cm. - Publisher: New York : New Press, [2013]
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references. |
Formatted Contents Note: | Acknowledgments -- List of abbreviations -- Preface -- Massacre -- The geography of hunger -- Invisible hunger -- Protracted crises -- Postscript 1: The gaza ghetto -- Postscript 2: Refugees from the North Korean famine -- The children of Crateus -- God is not a farmer -- "No one goes hungry in Switzerland" -- The tragedy of Noma -- The awakening of conscience -- Famine and fatalism : Malthus and natural selection -- Josue de Castro, phase one -- Hitler's "hunger plan" -- A light in the darkness : the United Nations -- Josue de Castro, phase two : A very heavy coffin -- Enemies of the right to food -- The crusaders of neoliberalism -- The horsemen of the apocalypse -- When free trade kills -- Savonarola on Lake Geneva -- The collapse of the WFP and the FAO's impotence -- A billionaire's fear -- Victory of the predators -- "Natural" selection redux -- Jalil Jilani and her children -- The defeat of Jacques Diouf -- Postscript: The murder of Iraq's children -- The vultures of "green gold" -- A great lie -- Barack Obama's obsession -- The curse of sugarcane -- Postscript: Hell in Gujarat -- Criminal recolonization -- The speculators -- The "tiger sharks" -- Geneva, world capital of agri-food speculators -- Land grabs and the resistance of the damned -- The complicity of the western states -- Epilogue -- Notes. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Food relief Political aspects Hunger Political aspects Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Kirtland Community College.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kirtland Community College Library | HV 696 .F6 Z54 2013 | 30775305472582 | General Collection | Available | - |
Publishers Weekly Review
Betting on Famine : Why the World Still Goes Hungry
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
During his 2000-2008 tenure as U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, Zeigler (The Swiss, the Gold and the Dead) traveled worldwide to understand hunger and the international policies that he believes cause it (including those that promote the use of crops for biofuels). In this devastating book, he describes the horrors of food insecurity, the callousness of "crusaders of neoliberalism" who control food and land access, and the individuals and grassroots organizations fighting for subsistence farmers and the right to food. Interspersed with statistics and policy critiques are vivid depictions of victims of this crisis, giving readers a visceral sense of the reality of the "mass destruction" caused by hunger and malnutrition. Zeigler criticizes biofuels, speculation, and land grabs, as well as corrupt politicians and organizations that influence the global commodities market, such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. Zeigler's scathing criticism of multinational corporations and U.S. policy, his heartrending descriptions of diseases caused by hunger, his disdain for capitalism and unapologetic alignment with socialists, and his descriptions of poverty may be a rude awakening for American readers. Agent: Georges Borchardt Inc. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Betting on Famine : Why the World Still Goes Hungry
Kirkus Reviews
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Ziegler (co-author: The Fight for the Right to Food, 2011, etc.), the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (2000-2008), points to the principles of the Atlantic Charter and Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms as possible solutions to world hunger, malnutrition and starvation. The author shows that the absolute numbers of the world's hungry have increased even while the proportion of the total population has fallen. He singles out the effect on the world's food supply of multitrillion-dollar financial bailouts, speculation and the destructive effects of free traderelated dumping of food products into hungry countries. Ziegler details how government-subsidized worldwide production of biofuels contributes to world hunger. This production results in the burning of hundreds of millions of tons of food products annually, which could otherwise be eaten, while depleting groundwater supplies and soils and spreading deforestation. The author insists that biofuel formulation is counterproductive to its stated purpose since it contributes to global warming and increases the release of carbon dioxide. Ziegler traces the idea of a right to food ("certainly the one most constantly violated on our planet") back to World War II. Freeing populations from want, including hunger, was one of the foundations of the Atlantic Charter, the program to defeat Hitlerism. "Hunger" policy, based on the Hitler regime's division of occupied Europe's populations into four categories--well-fed, underfed, hungry and starving--was at the core of Nazism and its program of genocide. Ziegler's historical perspective adds an important dimension to his argument. For him, food shortages are artificial, the result of human political choices, not the workings of nature. A powerfully written argument for a change of course and priorities.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.