Hunger. A Modern History (review)

Hunger has been omnipresent throughout human history. How it has been viewed, understood, judged and prevented have, however, changed in the modern age. According to this new history on the subject by James Vernon, from the middle of the nineteenth century, hunger, as a concept, changed from “part of God’s divine plan or the necessary sign of an individual’s moral failure to learn the virtue of labor” (p. 2) to a social problem reflecting the failure of economic systems and political policies. How this transformation occurred and the implications of it for the hungry, is at the core of this extremely interesting and compelling historical narrative.

Vernon begins with the Malthusian explanation for the problems of hunger in the new industrial world of Britain and its expanding Empire in the late eighteenth century. But the notion that hunger and hunger alone would teach people obedience and industry was challenged by criticism from the evangelicals and others that hunger was the problem, not the solution to issues of morality and the moral economy. Hunger became seen as a social problem resulting from legislative policy like the New Poor Law. As the realities of hunger and poor relief were publicized in the press, photography and popular literature, the hungry were seen as sympathetic figures rather than “architects of their own misery” (p.39).

Once the hungry were made human, feeding them became a litmus test for the British government. Hunger, therefore, became intertwined in politics. For nationalists and critics of the British imperial reign, hunger reflected the incompetence and/or racist policies of the Empire. In Ireland, famine was explained as a man-made policy of Anglo-Irish landlords, bureaucrats, and politicians who were motivated by self-interest, efficiency and hatred of the Irish Catholic poor. In India, famine reflected colonial incompetence at moving resources and intentionally pauperizing labor to keep the commercial classes profitable. Force-feeding the hunger-striking suffragettes was a different kind of political test for the British government, one in which intolerance for what contemporaries labeled “unconstitutional” treatment of women, was unacceptable. Asquith’s Liberal government and its authoritarian actions of force-feeding was no better than the harshest of monarchical and military regimes. For the government to let people starve was inexcusable. For the government to authorize physical force in order to feed those who chose hunger as a tool of political protest was equally bad. Hunger and morality were intertwined and the British government looked for new ways to depoliticize solutions to the humanitarian problem.

Scientific solutions would offer new means to correct the problem of hunger. Vernon devotes a chapter to the work of scientists, investigators and statisticians such as William Farr and John Boyd Orr. Understanding nutrition, metabolic combustion, etc., further transformed the view of hunger. Malnutrition could be avoided with education and assistance for the poor. Therefore, hunger continued to be political, it just changed from a symptom of victimization of market forces, failed colonial policies or protest events (such as the hunger strikes and marches) to a policy issue within the framework of twentieth century welfare reform. Discussions of hunger, Vernon contends, moved from the moralistic and humanitarian tones of the Victorian age to “technical equations showing how many calories human beings required and how much they would cost” (p. 117) Colonial ties were still critical, however, as transnational research institutes and foundations sought to create links between advancements in science and increased agricultural productivity and answers to questions concerning variations among nutrition, disease and races of human beings.

The “hungry thirties” brought everything together. The politics of hunger revealed that “malnutrition” and “undernutrition” were very different things and that the scientific means to measure hunger were underscored by the social, regional and cultural meanings of food and poverty. The hunger of northern England was a very real result of unemployment in the industrial sector. But as politicians differed as to the role the government should play in correcting unemployment and poverty, it was willing...