Betting on Famine

Few people in the developed world realize that world hunger was nearly eradicated in our lifetimes--and that widespread starvation has reappeared with a vengeance in the past five years. Every five seconds, according to the most recent data gathered by the United Nations, a child under the age of ten dies of hunger, and hundreds of millions more suffer the debilitating effects of chronic malnutrition. Why the sudden shift, after decades of food programs and agricultural innovations that dramatically expanded access to food for the world's poor? In a startling expose, food expert Jean Ziegler reveals an unlikely culprit: the new "green" revolution in energy production, wheredash;in response to the global warming crisisdash;a massive new industry in biofuels has diverted literally tens of millions of acres of corn and other grain crops from food to fuel. The results have been sudden and startling, with declining food stocks sending prices to record highs, and a new global commodities market in biofuels contributing to the gobbling up of arable lands in nearly every continent on Earth. Massive Destructionis the first book to sketch the full dimensions of the new global food crisis, looking at the history of efforts to rid the world of hunger as a backdrop to an imminent and dire reversal in human progress at the hands of a powerful and little-understood industry.