The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time) [Paperback]

Robert William Fogel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521004888 | ISBN-13: 978-0521004886 | Publication Date: May 17, 2004

Nobel laureate Robert Fogel's compelling new study examines health, nutrition and technology from 1700 to 2100. Although throughout most of human history, chronic malnutrition has been the norm, a synergy between improvements in productive technology and human physiology has enabled humans to more than double their average longevity and to increase their body size by over fifty percent over the past three centuries. Larger, healthier humans have contributed to the acceleration of economic growth and technological change, resulting in reduced economic inequality, declining hours of work and a corresponding increase in leisure time. Increased longevity has also brought increased demand for health care. Fogel argues that health care should be viewed as the growth industry of the twenty-first century and systems of financing it should be reformed. His book will be essential reading for all interested in economics, demography, history and health care policy. A professor at the University of Chicago, Robert William Fogel has taught at the University of Rochester, Cambridge University, and Harvard University. He has received numerous awards and prizes for his work, including the Arthur C. Cole Prize (1968), the Schumpeter Prize (1971), the Bancroft Prize (1975), the Gustavus Myers Prize (1990), and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science (1993). Previous books include Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (W.W. Norton & Company, 1994) and The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism (The University of Chicago Press, 2000).

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If economic history is to fulfill the promise inherent in its subject matter, it must add the dimension of time to economics. Bob Fogel's pathbreaking study does just that and in doing so not only revises our understanding of the past but provides a thoughtful guide to policy in the future."
Douglas C. North

"In his usual comprehensive and perceptive way, Professor Fogel has assembled and synthesized a vast set of data which bring out the radical transformation of human health and longevity. He has set this work in the context of general economic growth and has shown the inadequacy of the usual measures of growth. He also calls attention to the changes in the economic system implied by the growing importance of health expenditures and their benefits."
Kenneth J. Arrow

" Escape from Hunger is without a doubt one of Fogel's masterworks. Written in an accessible style, it is ideal for use in higher-level undergraduate and graduate courses."
EH.net

"Although this is a "little" book, just 111 pages in the main body, it is densely packed with deep-mine data and illuminating higher-order concepts derived from a lifetime of concentration on economic development. Robert William Fogel's The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 is that rare species of research - longitudinal study. Unlike the cross-sectional snapshots whose importance often quickly fades, there is gold in these data mines that is so precious because it is so difficult to find and so hard to get to. It is must reading for those in human biology, medicine and the social sciences who are interested in the issues surrounding human adaptation. It will also appeal to life-long learners drawn to the interface between the biology, economics and history of the human condition."
The Midwest Book Review

Book Description

Nobel laureate Robert Fogel's compelling new study examines health, nutrition and technology over the last three centuries and beyond. Chronic malnutrition is one reason why people in the past had smaller, weakerbodies and lived shorter lives than people do today. When better agriculture began to produce more food, people began to get bigger, healthier and to live longer. This process has contributed to economic growth and technological progress. Professor Fogel's powerful study will be essential reading for all those interested in economics, demography, history and health care policy.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (May 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521004888
• ISBN-13: 978-0521004886
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A glass more than half-full?, April 16, 2006

By 

A. R. Cellura (Abbeville, SC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time) (Hardcover)

Given that our vision is so heavily freighted with the moment, ideas of human progress are in short supply lately. Although not an easy ride, economic historian and Nobel laureate Robert William Fogel's survey of the long run, at least in respect to human morbidity, leisure and longevity, provides escape velocity from pressing concerns about war, pandemic, income inequality and the health of the ecosphere. It might be as another noted economist, Alfred Lord Keynes, said in a different context: In the long-run we are all dead. But, the long-run seems to be getting longer.

The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 is an extension of Fogel's briefer 1993 Nobel Prize Lecture. It provides a synergistic view of the impact of increasing human environmental control on the demographic, economic and physiological conditions of successive generations over the past 300 years. According to Fogel, the interaction of these forces has over this period, and most dramatically over the last century, brought about a new stage of evolution - non-genetic "techno-physio evolution." He indicates this is evidenced by an unprecedented positive change during this period in caloric intake of about 250%, human body size of over 50%, and an increase in longevity of over 100%. Pointing to the future, Fogel's extrapolation of data over the last 140 years in optimal life circumstances, suggests that centenarians will be common by the last quarter of the 21st century. During the past three centuries there has also been an accompanying substantial decrease in the hours it takes each day to earn one's daily bread and increase in the percentage of discretionary income.

Although this is a "little" book, just 111 pages in the main body, it is densely packed with deep-mine data and illuminating higher-order concepts derived from a lifetime of concentration on economic development, particularly when Fogel was affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research as director of its Development of the American Economy Program and subsequently at the University of Chicago as the Charles R. Walgreen Professor of American Institutions and director of the university's Center for Population Economics. Metabolic indices, the thermodynamics of human physiological activity, Waaler curves, in-utero effects on morbidity, protein energy, malnutrition, physiological capital, and Gini ratios are grist for Fogel's mill.

Fogel's treatment of the confluence of technological change, diet, morbidity, work demands, leisure and mortality extends beyond developments in Western society to include the rapid pace of technophysio evolutionary changes in third world countries whose per capita income increases piggybacked on Western innovations, consequently dwarfing the much slower pace of Western improvements a century earlier. In the process of his examination he emphasizes the need to recognize the optimal conditions for human adaptation rather than settle for standards such as daily caloric requirements derived from earlier phases of technophysio evolution. Policy issues in the areas of health care, personal savings and retirement are also discussed in the light of the demographic changes that are occurring.

Some data reported by Fogel and those from other sources are anomalous. For instance, in view of the technophysio evolution particularly of the last 100 years, it seems strange that Dutch males, who were on average about 5'5" in 1860 are now the tallest in the world at about 5'11" while over the same period US men, who were about 5'7" then, are only 5'8" now after the declines of the last few decades. One explanation derives from the widening gap between the rich and the poor in the US (Gini = 45) compared to the greater income equality in the Netherlands (Gini = 30.9). (The Gini coefficient ranges from 1-100 with lower scores representing less income inequality). Also, there are data from millennia ago indicating a decline in average heights in the Eastern Mediterranean in the transition period from the hunter-gatherer economic regime to the first agricultural revolution (11,000 BC - 5000 BC). In John Kolmos (Ed.) Stature, Living Standards and Economic Development (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1994) there are a number of contributions that focus on such issues.

Professor Fogel touches very briefly on in utero, childhood and adolescence effects of economic status on morbidity and mortality, but his comment that "The exact mechanisms by which malnutrition and trauma in utero or in early childhood are transformed into organ dysfunctions are still unclear." (p. 32) is unwarranted. These relationships are detailed extensively in various chapters of the volume by Bruce S. McEwen and H. Maurice Goodman (Eds.) Handbook of Physiology: Coping with the Environment: Vol. IV (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001) for neuroendocrine abnormalities; in D.J.P. Barker's Mothers, Babies and Health in later Life (Churchill Livingstone, 1998) and Fetal Origins of Cardiovascular and Lung Disease (Marcel Dekker, 2001) for specific organ effects; in Peter Gluckman and Mark Hansen's The Fetal Matrix (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005) for more general morbidity effects; and A.R. Cellura's The Genomic Environment and Niche-Experience (Cedar Springs Press, 2005) for the confluence of genetic influences, economic regimes, ecological niches, caloric intake, stature, morbidity and mortality.

Robert William Fogel's The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 is that rare species of research - longitudinal study. Unlike the cross-sectional snapshots whose importance often quickly fades, there is gold in these data mines that is so precious because it is so difficult to find and so hard to get to. It is must reading for those in human biology, medicine and the social sciences who are interested in the issues surrounding human adaptation. It will also appeal to life-long learners drawn to the interface between the biology, economics and history of the human condition.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life in the past was much worse than you ever thought, December 30, 2009

By 

Paul Moreno (Fairhope, AL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time) (Hardcover)

The book starts with an examination of living conditions preceding and during the Industrial Revolution, based on data developed in Britain and France in the last few decades that shows life expectancy and mortality for the past three to four centuries. Parallel research also reconstructed estimates of the food available for both countries and some limited data on height of adult males. The data shows that food supply was insufficient and this is also reflected in stunted heights. The problem of hunger was so bad, particularly in France, that people did not get enough calories to do much productive work, and were confined to bed in the winter as a means of conserving calories. People in the US fared better, having adequate nourishment, greatly outliving people in Britain and France.

Though diseases and occasional famines took a toll, chronic malnutrition was a factor in disease susceptibility but chronic malnutrition itself was by far the major factor in mortality. This argument is reinforced with graphs and tables of relative mortality versus height and body mass index.

Times series show a secular decline in mortality beginning around 1750 and continuing until the early 20th Century, although the scatter in the data was also markedly reduced (around the time of industrialization, railroads, steamships and canals) probably due to reduced impact of famines and epidemics.

The books concludes with a discussion of societal effects of the great increase in life expectancy and the problem of health care for the elderly.

After reading this book you will give thanks before every meal!

For a contemporary account see: Friedrich Engles: The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844

As for how we managed to escape from hunger see: Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production by Vaclav Smil

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book that Stays with Me, July 4, 2008

By 

Dr. Gabriella Kadar (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time) (Paperback)

This is the first book written by an economist that I have ever read. I always had a rather stereotyped preconceived notion that books by economists are either incomprehensible or sleep inducing or both.

Quelle Suprise! and Lucky lucky me! Professor Fogel has impressed the hell out of me.

Not only is this book a masterpiece of scholarship but it is absolutely rivetting. I could not put it down! There isn't a day that goes by when something learned from this book comes up through connections I make in regards to other subjects I learn or read about.

For example, the New York Times had an article before Christmas about 18th and 19th century French peasants spending their winter months in bed, sleeping as much as possible, only getting up to feed and water their animals. I remembered from Prof. Fogel's book that the French peasants never had enough to eat to grow to optimum body height and build. Of course they'd spend the coldest months 'hibernating'. They needed to save whatever food they had on basic survival.

I could go on and on but prefer to write a review and not rewrite the book.

I know it's a big concept and a big word, but for me this is a seminal work. Thanks Professor Fogel.