1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910824301303321

Autore

Cullather Nick <1959->

Titolo

The hungry world [[electronic resource] ] : America's cold war battle against poverty in Asia / / Nick Cullather

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Mass., : Harvard University Press, 2010

ISBN

0-674-05882-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (369 p.)

Classificazione

QS 800

Disciplina

338.1/873095

Soggetti

Agricultural assistance, American - Asia

Economic assistance, American - Asia

Food supply - Asia

Food relief - Asia

United States Foreign relations Asia

Asia Foreign relations United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

The world food problem -- Mexico's way out -- A continent of peasants -- We shall release the waters -- A very big, very poor country -- Parable of seeds -- You can't eat steel -- The meaning of famine -- The conquest of hunger -- Present at the recreation.

Sommario/riassunto

Cullather has written an engrossing history of how the United States government, along with private philanthropies like the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, aimed to win the hearts and bodies of rural Asia in the post World War II decades by crafting strategies to develop and modernize agriculture and the peasant’s way of life. He explains how America used foreign aid, modernization theory, nutrition, statistics, and technology, to try to reconstruct the social and political order of the decolonized and disadvantaged countries in the region. Initially the issue of how best to intervene in Asia’s rural countryside was contentious, with clashing visions of development and humanitarian aid being argued throughout the 50’s and 60’s. Ultimately, one strategy displaced all the others—the “Green Revolution” and the ability to feed millions through the miracle of genetically designed dwarf strains of grain and rice. Cullather provides



a detailed explanation of how this policy of feeding Asian peasants became the single strategy of “progress” adopted by the US rather than industrialization or land reform. As current controversy swirls about how best to aid Africa in the crisis of nation-building, famine, and a poverty-stricken peasantry, the story of the U.S. interventions in Asia become starkly relevant.