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The Hungry World: America's Cold War Battle against Poverty in Asia Illustrated Edition

by Nick Cullather (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 17 ratings
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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.

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  1. ISBN-10
    0674050789
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0674050785
  3. Edition
    Illustrated
  4. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  5. Publication date
    December 1, 2010
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
  8. Print length
    368 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Nick Cullather's pathbreaking book takes readers on a journey of understanding about the failures of the "development" model so beloved by American policymakers from before the Cold War to the present. It may well become famous as a turning point about how to think about world poverty and to stimulate new answers to it. (Lloyd Gardner, author of Three Kings: the Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II)

Facing insurgencies, U.S. officials and expert advisers want to fight famine, alleviate hunger, and ameliorate the conditions on which terrorism thrives. Nick Cullather's new book -- thoughtful, erudite, provocative -- is a vivid and timely explication of the hopes and disappointments of past efforts to modernize and develop. (Melvyn Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War)

Nick Cullather's exploration of the critical linkages between power politics, scientific and technical assistance, famine alarms and schemes to increase food production is one of the most original and engaging books to date on the impact of the cold war on the emerging states of the developing world. (Michael Adas, author of Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America's Civilizing Mission)

A pioneering and transformative work that tracks the politics of hunger from the invention of the calorie to Asia's Cold War ideological battlegrounds, The Hungry World explores, with a sharp, lively sense of irony, American scientists' and policy-makers' relentless and often futile efforts to transmute the conflictual politics of rural deprivation into a technocratic politics of agricultural production. (Paul A. Kramer, author of The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States and the Philippines)

The Hungry World furnishes a striking vantage on development policy, as well as on the decidedly mixed outcomes of American engagement with Asian politics. (Katherine Maher Bookforum 2010-12-01)

[This] is an utterly fascinating story--partially about the economics of famine, but mostly about the irrepressible postwar generation who genuinely believed American technology could win the battle for Asian hearts and minds, and stop communism in its tracks. (Paul Grant Books & Culture 2010-12-28)

Brilliant...Admirable...The Hungry World is an immensely important book...[Cullather] has performed a tremendous service, and written a book not just of interest but of lasting value in showing in detail and with great discernment just how new, and also how radical, development was when it first began to transform the ways powerful nations thought about everything from the specifics of warfighting (it is where the "hearts and minds" doctrine was born, after all) to the broadest questions of national interest...If Cullather is right...then his account requires us to rewrite the diplomatic history of the second half of the twentieth century. The Hungry World is the invaluable beginning of that rewriting. (David Rieff The Nation 2011-02-17)

Cullather's book amounts to a thorough, gracefully written debunking of what might be called the green revolution master narrative...Cullather's brilliant, concise early chapter on the Green Revolution's birth in Mexico anchors his broader argument...By the end of the Mexico chapter, Cullather has already shattered the green revolution myth and exposed it as something like a lunge, and a not very well thought-out one, to replace other societies' farming systems with our own highly problematic one. (Tom Philpott Mother Jones 2011-08-05)

About the Author

Nick Cullather is Professor of History and International Studies at Indiana University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 1, 2010
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Illustrated
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674050789
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674050785
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.56 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
  • Best Sellers Rank: #1,735,113 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 17 ratings

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Nick Cullather

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
17 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book's information quality positive, with one mentioning it's great for a history of science and technology graduate course. The writing style receives mixed reactions, with some finding it well written while others disagree.

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Information qualityWriting style
4 customers mention "Information quality"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative, with one mentioning it is great for a history of science and technology graduate course.

"The book was very informative but the writing style makes the book unnecessarily difficult...." Read more

"...But despite being grammatically well written and informative, it didn't "move me" like I hoped it would...." Read more

"...be initially apparent, this book would be great for a history of science and technology graduate course." Read more

"...This work has been invaluable...." Read more

3 customers mention "Writing style"2 positive1 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the writing style of the book.

"...But despite being grammatically well written and informative, it didn't "move me" like I hoped it would...." Read more

"The book was very informative but the writing style makes the book unnecessarily difficult...." Read more

"Good information. Bad style...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Marci Baranski
    5.0 out of 5 stars Informative history of the Green Revolution and beyond in Asia
    Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2013
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Cullather's well-researched history of the green revolution in Asia is a breath of fresh air into a polarized debate over food, population, and poverty. He shows how throughout the Cold War, Washington political leaders, diplomats, and private foundations relied on narratives about technological solutions to complex problems, often leaving worse problems in their wake. Borrowing from James C. Scott's "Seeing Like a State," Cullather shows how socio-political challenges were reduced to only their technical components, such as calories produced or population statistics. Coupled with modernization theory and economic models, this led to the globalization of international aid. The consequences of this system are still apparent, as political leaders and philanthropists continue to rely on simplified narratives and models from the green revolution era, ignoring historical, political, cultural, and local contexts.

    While it may not be initially apparent, this book would be great for a history of science and technology graduate course.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • harley
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful History of the Green Revolution and the rise of "development" as an international undertaking
    Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2013
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Just a really interesting take on the Green Revolution set on the larger stage of the rise of a development ethos in the United States and the international community. Particulalry of interest his how Cullather shows how problems were frequently constructed to fit with solutions that science and funders wanted to pursue. This book should be read by everyone engaged in rural development today as a place for reflection on where this work has come from and where we are going.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • SleggsDH
    4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and well written, but not very engaging...
    Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2013
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    My history instructor used this book to teach his class (along with a couple other books), so it was required reading -- I either read it or I failed the class. But despite being grammatically well written and informative, it didn't "move me" like I hoped it would. It felt like work trying to keep track of the different events and their relationship to each other, both geographically and chronologically. I feel like Cullather tried to organize the material chronologically, geographically, and idealistically -- all at the same time. That's hard (maybe impossible) to do. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book. And I'll forever view America's foreign policies differently (the concept of using starving peasants as weapons against communism will stick with me for a while...). But I think organizing the material differently would have made this book more interesting.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Tim
    2.0 out of 5 stars Good information. Bad style.
    Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2013
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    The book was very informative but the writing style makes the book unnecessarily difficult. It doesn't follow a linear time sequence or geographical pattern. The book doesn't have a logical flow between subtopics which I feel is the root of the problem. Also, the author frequently chooses to go into detail about some names, places, and regions but those details quickly become irrelevant in the larger narrative of the book. Lastly, I expected a book that mentions the Cold War in the subtitle would have a lot more info on the Soviets actions/counteraction in the "Battle against Poverty in Asia" but the Soviets are largely ignored throughout the book.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Trey Menefee
    5.0 out of 5 stars I'm doing a PhD thesis on international agricultural research and ...
    Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2014
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    I'm doing a PhD thesis on international agricultural research and extension. This work has been invaluable. Anyone doing similar research, or just wanting to learn about the political economy of food and agricultural research, should give this a cover-to-cover read.
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  • Anonymous
    5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful examination of limits of idealism in US foreign policy
    Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2011
    Format: Hardcover
    Professor Cullather is known to his students as a pragmatic, sincere and thoughtful scholar. His new book, The Hungry World, provides a unique and compelling overview of efforts by the US government and non-governmental entities to solve the hunger problem in Asia during the Cold War. Cullather appreciates how idealism and the desire to help others reflected benign motives, but also represented subtle and not so subtle efforts to "reform the other" in the image of the American self. The author provides crucial insights that U.S. foreign policy makers would be wise to take to heart today. Our efforts to reform other peoples and polities, though motivated by good intentions, are ultimately limited by our own limitations and our sometimes tragically limited understanding of ourselves. This is a book about hunger and cold war and asia, but it is much more; Cullather provides a case study in the limits of well meaning efforts aimed at changing others for their own good. As doctors are told to listen carefully to their patients, Cullather provides a profound lesson for policy makers: listen carefully to those whose lives you seek to make anew. And try to avoid a cure that produces side effects that reverberate across the generations.
    6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Mrs. D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great service
    Reviewed in Canada on August 3, 2011
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    The book was ordered as a gift so I haven't read it but I know it arrived in good time and in perfect condition. Thanks for the good service.
    Report