Hunger and History
The Impact of Changing Food Production and Consumption Patterns on Society

The essays in this 1985 volume direct attention to important questions on the relationship between food and history.

Robert I. Rotberg (Edited by), Theodore K. Rabb (Edited by)

9780521315050, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 March 1985

346 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.51 kg

The essays in this 1985 volume direct attention to important questions on the relationship between food and history. Throughout human history, man has had to adapt and sustain himself by varying or expanding the basic kinds or forms of his nutritional staples, by migration, or by employing remarkable ingenuities to alter his environment. But we have as yet only a rudimentary understanding of nutrition and malnutrition in the past. The authors of these essays show how much of the past can be better understood if the distinctions which are obvious to clinicians and nutritionists are assimilated by historians. Likewise, this volume challenges assumptions about the mechanisms of population growth and decline, as well as theories of how populations react or adapt to constraints on their resources.

1. Nutrition and history Robert I. Rotberg
2. Nutrition, mortality and population size: Malthus' court of last report Susan Cotts Watkins and Etienne van de Walle
3. Food, Infection Thomas McKeown
4. Infection, hidden hunger, and history Ann G. Carmichael
5. The impact of scarcity and plenty on population change in England, 1571–1871 Roger Schofield
6. The nutrition-mortality link in past times: a comment Massumo Livi-Bacci
7. The horticultural revolution: a cautionary note on prices Joan Thirsk
8. Social conflict and the grain supply in eighteenth-century France Olwen Hufton
9. Food entitlement, famine, and conflict Louise A. Tilly
10. Famines, epidemics, and population growth Michelle B. McAlpin
11. Better nutrition and India: a comment Santhebachahalli G. Srikantia
12. Nutrition in African History Philip D. Curtin
13. The impact of scarcity and plenty on development Ester Boserup
14. Functional consequences of malnutrition for human populations: a comment Nevin S. Scrimshaw
15. The effects of population on nutrition and economic well-being Julian L. Simon
16. Economics and population growth: a comment Roderick C. Floud
17. Secular changes in American and British stature and nutrition Robert W. Fogel et al.
18. Synergy among mass infections, famines and poverty Carl E. Taylor
19. The relationship of nutrition, disease, and social conditions: a graphical presentation The Conferees
20. Diet and delocalization: dietary changes since 1750 Gretel H. Pelto and Peretti J. Pelto
21. The value of contemporary food and nutrition studies for historians Nevin S. Scrimshaw.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]