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The Hungry World : America’s Cold War Battle against Poverty in Asia / Nick Cullather.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]Copyright date: 2013Description: 1 online resource (368 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674262881
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 338.1/873095 23/eng/20230216
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1 The World Food Problem -- 2 Mexico’s Way Out -- 3 A Continent of Peasants -- 4 We Shall Release the Waters -- 5 A Very Big, Very Poor Country -- 6 A Parable of Seeds -- 7 You Can’t Eat Steel -- 8 The Meaning of Famine -- 9 The Conquest of Hunger -- 10 Present at the Re- creation -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Archives -- Index
Summary: Food was a critical front in the Cold War battle for Asia. “Where Communism goes, hunger follows” was the slogan of American nation builders who fanned out into the countryside to divert rivers, remodel villages, and introduce tractors, chemicals, and genes to multiply the crops consumed by millions. This “green revolution” has been credited with averting Malthusian famines, saving billions of lives, and jump-starting Asia’s economic revival. Bono and Bill Gates hail it as a model for revitalizing Africa’s economy. But this tale of science triumphant conceals a half century of political struggle from the Afghan highlands to the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta, a campaign to transform rural societies by changing the way people eat and grow food.The ambition to lead Asia into an age of plenty grew alongside development theories that targeted hunger as a root cause of war. Scientific agriculture was an instrument for molding peasants into citizens with modern attitudes, loyalties, and reproductive habits. But food policies were as contested then as they are today. While Kennedy and Johnson envisioned Kansas-style agribusiness guarded by strategic hamlets, Indira Gandhi, Marcos, and Suharto inscribed their own visions of progress onto the land.Out of this campaign, the costliest and most sustained effort for development ever undertaken, emerged the struggles for resources and identity that define the region today. As Obama revives the lost arts of Keynesianism and counter-insurgency, the history of these colossal projects reveals bitter and important lessons for today’s missions to feed a hungry world.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674262881

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1 The World Food Problem -- 2 Mexico’s Way Out -- 3 A Continent of Peasants -- 4 We Shall Release the Waters -- 5 A Very Big, Very Poor Country -- 6 A Parable of Seeds -- 7 You Can’t Eat Steel -- 8 The Meaning of Famine -- 9 The Conquest of Hunger -- 10 Present at the Re- creation -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Archives -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Food was a critical front in the Cold War battle for Asia. “Where Communism goes, hunger follows” was the slogan of American nation builders who fanned out into the countryside to divert rivers, remodel villages, and introduce tractors, chemicals, and genes to multiply the crops consumed by millions. This “green revolution” has been credited with averting Malthusian famines, saving billions of lives, and jump-starting Asia’s economic revival. Bono and Bill Gates hail it as a model for revitalizing Africa’s economy. But this tale of science triumphant conceals a half century of political struggle from the Afghan highlands to the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta, a campaign to transform rural societies by changing the way people eat and grow food.The ambition to lead Asia into an age of plenty grew alongside development theories that targeted hunger as a root cause of war. Scientific agriculture was an instrument for molding peasants into citizens with modern attitudes, loyalties, and reproductive habits. But food policies were as contested then as they are today. While Kennedy and Johnson envisioned Kansas-style agribusiness guarded by strategic hamlets, Indira Gandhi, Marcos, and Suharto inscribed their own visions of progress onto the land.Out of this campaign, the costliest and most sustained effort for development ever undertaken, emerged the struggles for resources and identity that define the region today. As Obama revives the lost arts of Keynesianism and counter-insurgency, the history of these colossal projects reveals bitter and important lessons for today’s missions to feed a hungry world.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Aug 2024)