Eating People Is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, Its Past, and Its Future (ebook)

Argumento de Eating People Is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, Its Past, and Its Future (ebook)

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2015

"Ó Grádas book offers a sobering reminder of the importance of making judgments based on good data and unhindered by ideological filters."--Douglas Gollin, Foreign Affairs

"The breadth of primary and secondary resources referenced is notable throughout, and this excellent book by a leading scholar is accessible to all readers."--Choice

"Cormac Ó Gráda knows more than most people about famines, historical and modern, and his short book of essays, Eating People is Wrong, is superb."--Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist

"The overriding impression one gets from reading Cormac Ó Grádas latest, brilliant book is that famines the world over are an ugly human stain."--David Nally, Irish Times

"The Irish economist Cormac O Grada has written a rarity: a coolly rational, cautiously cheerful book about the most viscerally upsetting subject imaginable, mass death from hunger. . . .For O Grada, perhaps the worlds expert on the history and economics of famine, now is the time to understand this long-standing terror."--Charles C. Mann, Pacific Standard

"Cormac Ó Gráda has written a beautiful book about a painful and difficult subject, famines. In these five essays, he shows how combining the skills and common sense of the economist with the subtlety and sensitivity of the historian can produce fascinating and deep insights into a topic that few people today think about but that historians and observers of the developing world cannot ignore."--Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University

"Cormac Ó Gráda's collection of essays, Eating People Is Wrong, demonstrates his extraordinary range. His assessment of the incidence of cannibalism in famine times, the subject of the essay that gives the collection its title, will stimulate many other scholars to reconsider their views on this controversial topic. And the other essays, which concentrate on the economic history of famine, in various regions and at various times, sustain his reputation as one of the leading researchers of these calamities."--William Chester Jordan, Princeton University

"After war, famines are perhaps the greatest act of inhumanity perpetrated by our species. As Cormac Ó Gráda shows, famines happen because we let them happen and they bring out the best and worst in people, from cannibalism and the abandonment of children to the heroic sacrifices of parents to protect their children. In clear and open language, Ó Gráda presents the true picture of famines."--Peter Walker, dean of the Falk School of Sustainability, Chatham University

"This is a superb book that should become a classic. Cormac Ó Gráda brings extraordinary social scientific rigor to the history of famine."--Stephen Wheatcroft, University of Melbourne

"Cormac Ó Gráda is todays leading authority on famine and this shows in the high quality of this book and its impressive ability to innovate and further our understanding of the subject. This is an important contribution to economic history, history, economic development, and demography, but it will also appeal to general readers interested in famine."--Guido Alfani, Bocconi University, Milan

"[I]ts final chapter offers salient discussion of future possibilities and constraints for food security."--Liz Young, Times Higher Education

"Dealing with some of the most horrendous aspects of famine, the five essays collected here are meticulously scholarly and at the same time arrestingly vivid."--John Gray, New Statesman

"This book is written in calm prose, but its message is urgent: continue as we are and poverty will grow on our doorsteps."--Danny Dorling, Times Higher Education0Introduction 1
1 Eating People Is Wrong: Famine's Darkest Secret? 11
2 "Sufficiency and Sufficiency and Sufficiency": Revisiting the Great Bengal Famine of 1943?44 38
3 Markets and Famines: Pre-industrial Europe and Beyond 92
4 Great Leap into Great Famine 130
5 Famine Is Not the Problem?For Now 174
Bibliography 209
Index 231