This volume is the first of three addressing a wide range of policy issues relating to the role of public action in combating hunger and deprivation in the modern world. It deals with the background nutritional, economic, social, and political aspects of the problem of world hunger. Topics covered include the characteristics and causal antecedents of famines and endemic deprivation, the interconnections between economic and political factors, the role of social relations and the family, the special problems of women's deprivation, the connection between food consumption and other indicators of living standards, and the medical aspects of undernourishment and its consequences. Several contributions also address the political background of public policy, in particular the connection between the government and the public, including the role of newspapers and the media, and the part played by political commitment and by adversarial politics and pressures. Taken together, these essays provide a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the problem of hunger deprivation, and an important guide for action. This work will interest development and agricultural economists, political economists, and those working in public bodies at national and international levels concerned with the management of food and health resources.
The authors are highly respected and the series draws on an extraordinary data base and comparison between countries....This series forms the most definitive recent analysis of the problems of hunger and deprivation in the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The range of issues and countries covered is nothing short of extraordinary...Meticulously argued....Attention to detail sets these studies far above other contemporary writing on hunger and deprivation. Equally the series is welcome for its criticism of economic growth and food production to the exclusion of equity and distribution. --
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