This comprehensive two-volume encyclopedia examines specific famines throughout history and contains entries on key topics related to food production, security and policies, and famine, giving readers an in-depth look at food crises and their causes, responses to them, and outcomes.

Famines have claimed more lives across human history than all the wars ever fought.

This two-volume set represents the most comprehensive study of food and famine currently available, providing the broadest analysis of hunger and famine causes as well as a detailed examination of the ramifications of cultural and natural hazards upon famine.



Volume one focuses upon 50 topics and issues relating to the creation of hunger and famines in the world from 4000 BCE to 2100, including an overview of how agriculture has evolved from primitive hunting and gathering that supported limited numbers of people to a worldwide system that now feeds over seven billion people. Volume two, entitled Classic Famines, begins with famines of the past, from 4000 BCE to 2100 CE, includes ten classic famine case studies, and concludes with predictions of famines we could see in the 21st century and beyond.









Contributions from professors at West Point, Rutgers University, and other universities and colleges; specialists at nutrition centers, hospitals, and the Population Reference Bureau; and the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) World Food Day participants



Original data, diagrams, photographs, charts, and tables



Illustrations include maps, many designed by the author of the entry or book chapter; and graphics secured from U.S. government source material, UN publications, and historic texts



A "further readings" section accompanies each entry or book chapter



Concluding bibliographies at the end of each volume