Food and Development: The Political Economy of Hunger and the Modern Diet,

“Despite the increasing prosperity of the ‘developed’ countries, food production and consumption continue to pose major problems across the world. Millions of people still go hungry and the overconsumption of some foods are almost certainly contributing to serious illness and mortality. Drawing on theories of development, such as modernization, dependency, and entitlement, John Abraham critically examines the attempts by conservative, liberal and revolutionary governments to tackle these problems in the post-war 20^th century. The book combines documentary research analysing international development data on global food and nutrition with extensive review of literature on the political economy of food and development. It interrogates the literature on population control, the Green Revolution, famines, food aid, international trade agreements, state ‘socialist’ development, and the regulation of food safety and diet. A pessimistic conclusion is reached regarding the possibility of eliminating malnutrition under world capitalism, and he argues that a more rational system of resource distribution giving priority to human needs, rather than profit maximization is required.”