Modern hungers : food and power in twentieth-century Germany /

Modern hungers : food and power in twentieth-century Germany /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Weinreb, Alice Autumn, author.
Imprint:	New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]. ©2017
Description:	viii, 317 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Language:	English
Subject:	Food supply -- Political aspects -- Germany -- History -- 20th century. Food industry and trade -- Political aspects -- Germany -- History -- 20th century. Food -- Political aspects -- Germany -- History -- 20th century. Food -- Social aspects -- Germany -- History -- 20th century. Hunger -- Political aspects -- Germany -- History -- 20th century. Hunger -- Social aspects -- Germany -- History -- 20th century. Power -- Germany -- History -- 20th century. Economic history. Food industry and trade -- Political aspects. Food -- Social aspects. Food supply -- Political aspects. Hunger -- Political aspects. Hunger -- Social aspects. Politics and government. Social conditions. Germany -- Politics and government -- 20th century. Germany -- Social conditions -- 20th century. Germany -- Economic conditions -- 20th century. Germany. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12763378

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780190092481 0190092483 9780190605094 019060509X
Notes:	First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2020. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"During the first decades of the twentieth century, modern states fighting World War I and II for the first time experimented with feeding--and starving--entire populations. Within the new globalizing economy, food became intimately intertwined with waging war. In Europe, starvation claimed more lives than any other weapon of war. As Alice Weinreb shows in Modern Hungers, nowhere was this more apparent than in Germany, initiator and loser of both wars. The end of armed conflict in 1945 did not mean that such military strategies declined in significance. Fears of hunger and fantasies of abundance were instead reframed within a new political system that saw the world as divided between capitalism and communism. Divided Germany rapidly became the key European stage for the Cold War. During the postwar decades, Europeans lived longer, possessed more goods, and were healthier than ever before. Nothing signaled this shift more clearly than the disappearance of famine from the continent. So powerful was the experience of post-1945 abundance that it is hard today to imagine a time when the specter of hunger haunted Europe and the primary targets for American food aid was Belgium and Germany rather than Africa. Yet under both capitalist and communist systems, economic growth and political priorities proved inseparable from the modern food system. Drawing on sources ranging from military records to cookbooks to economic and nutritional studies from East and West German archives, Modern Hungers reveals similarities and striking ruptures in popular experience and state policy relating to the industrial food economy. It thus offers historical context for many key contemporary concerns ranging from humanitarian food aid to the gender-wage gap to the obesity epidemic"--Provided by publisher.

Description
Summary:	During World War I and II, modern states for the first time experimented with feeding - and starving - entire populations. Within the new globalizing economy, food became intimately intertwined with waging war, and starvation claimed more lives than any other weapon. As Alice Weinreb shows in Modern Hungers, nowhere was this new reality more significant than in Germany, which struggled through food blockades, agricultural crises, economic depressions, and wartime destruction and occupation at the same time that it asserted itself as a military, cultural, and economic powerhouse of Europe. The end of armed conflict in 1945 did not mean the end of these military strategies involving food. Fears of hunger and fantasies of abundance were instead reframed within a new Cold War world. During the postwar decades, Europeans lived longer, possessed more goods, and were healthier than ever before. This shift was signaled most clearly by the disappearance of famine from the continent. So powerful was the experience of post-1945 abundance that it is hard today to imagine a time when the specter of hunger haunted Europe, demographers feared that malnutrition would mean the end of whole nations, and the primary targets for American food aid were Belgium and Germany rather than Africa. Yet under both capitalism and communism, economic growth as well as social and political priorities proved inseparable from the modern food system. Drawing on sources ranging from military records to cookbooks to economic and nutritional studies from a multitude of archives, Modern Hungers reveals similarities and striking ruptures in popular experience and state policy relating to the industrial food economy. In so doing, it offers historical perspective on contemporary concerns ranging from humanitarian food aid to the gender-wage gap to the obesity epidemic.
Item Description:	First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2020.
Physical Description:	viii, 317 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9780190092481 0190092483 9780190605094 019060509X