The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays Book

Contents: Introduction. 1. The ideology of overpopulation. 2. The costs of free trade: the WTO regime and the Indian economy. 3. The economic and demographic collapse in Russia. 4. The loss of food security in sub-Saharan Africa. 5. Asia must starve to feed the west: the rice debacle in the Philippines. 6. Peasant resistance to globalisation: Chiapas a symbol. 7. Mass income deflation, burgeoning foodstocks. 8. Foodstocks and hunger: causes of agrarian distress. 9. The republic of hunger. 10. Theorising food security and poverty in the era of economic reforms. 11. It is time for Kumbhakarna to wake up. 12. Agrarian crisis under neo-imperialism and the importance of peasant resistance.

"Utsa Patnaik’s book is as much a comment on the state of economics as a discipline today, as on the economic policies that are ruining the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the Third World. The unifying theme of her essays is the impact on the Third World of the new imperialism in the present era, which takes the form of deflationary neo-liberal ‘economic reforms’, a thrust towards free trade and subservient agriculture. She shows how these policies are causing unprecendented rural distress and universal hunger in the developing countries including India. Hers is a voice of sanity, conscience and true scholarship."