The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle against Poverty in Asia

by Nick Cullather

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Food, Economics, Agriculture, Food History

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2010

Reviews

[Ai Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things this book does well: re-examine the narrative about the "green revolution," and disentangle the ways that development as a practice involving food and populations, uh, well, 'developed.' It really denaturalized the history of that practice and the theories surrounding it, and for that I think it is honestly worth checking out.

Things I struggled with in this book: it feels like it bounces all over the place geographically and to some extent temporally, at least in the latter half of the book? There were some historical figures who I really struggled to keep straight even as they appeared again and again. Also I read the e-book which comes with zero pictures, which is annoying. Also the conclusion struck me as very weird (there's a bit where he was like "PEOPLE DON'T CARE ABOUT FOOD-RELATED DEVELOPMENT ANY MORE BECAUSE OF 24-HOUR NEWS ON TV" and I was like 'that's not what your book is about but ok') and really jolted me out of the book in general. Also it just isn't generally the kind of book I find very interesting in the first place, so that was something that is my fault, not the book's.

All that being said, again, I would actually recommend this book because I think it has some important things to say about the ways that food-related development projects have been run historically (it stupidly had never occurred to me that 'there are starving children in China!' was a phrase more to do with defeating Communism than about actual children...) and I think that is really important in the politics around development today.

[Lianne Burwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting examination of food/agricultural aid from about the time of the second world war through to the early eighties in Asia, and then a quick look at how things are starting up again, much the same, in Africa. In Asia this was a battlefield in the cold war. In Africa, I would guess that you could similarly see it as a battlefield in the war on terror.

Needless to say, hindsight is 20/20, and reading this history, you can see how paternalistic assumptions led to western scientists deciding that they knew best, and the results, in a number of countries, made things worse. For example, putting dams on rivers in Afghanistan to support agriculture despite warnings (that turned out to be very prophetic) that raising water tables would also result in salination of farm lands, rendering them useless. Also, there was the push to take nomadic herders and turn them into farmers tied to land, only to result in even more hunger.

My only complaint about the book was that as a university press book, the writing was rather dense at times. It was not a very accessible read in places. But being a university press book, I guess you couldn't expect high readability. Anyway, it was an informative, if difficult, read.

[Yeast · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that contains many interesting ideas (nutrition, demography, modernization theory, agrarian history, history of science & tech) but ultimately fails to bring these threads together. The chapters on South Asia are rich in contents but frustrating in structure. Besides it focuses too much on scientists and bureaucrats without the micro-narrative of technicians and peasants. But overall an important work that needs a lot of streamlining and update.

[Marci · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accessible, engaging account of the so-called "Green Revolution", and American foreign policy efforts to quell unrest and revolution in Asia by agriculture-centric "development" using the tools of the GR. Meticulously researched and sourced, the account presents a narrative that relies heavily on the contemporary (and often surprising) words of involved government officials and notables (eg Borlaug et al) to dissect the goals and results of these programmes as well as the contemporary and retrospective narratives that have sprung up around them. An excellent practical application of James C. Scott's critique of high modernist approaches to agricultural problems laid out in "Seeing Like a State" to probably the most important and influential historical example. If you care at all about agriculture, development narratives, counterinsurgency, American foreign policy, etc, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

[John Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An examination of development policy and food aid that starts with the development of the calorie and traces policy and practice through Mexico, Asia and into the 21sf Century and Africa. Cullather finds that food aid was wielded by the US as a foreign policy carrot, and that the Green Revolution wasn't quite a success.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cullather's account is well researched and interesting, and shows how well intentioned efforts at aid can go awry. It offers powerful lessons to policy makers on the uses of soft powers and intervention and clearly depicts how local politics and issues can impede even the seemingly non-controversial.

[Wendy Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for political ecology seminar.