Books & Media Reviews

‘How to Feed the World’ offers practical, positive solutions to food insecurity

A new book of essays by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Purdue University helps readers understand how decisions made today by farmers, scientists, policymakers, educators and consumers are vital to ensuring global food se...

Reviewed By: Darrin Pack

26 Films Every Food Activist Must Watch

Films and short videos are a powerful way of increasing awareness of and interest in the food system. With equal parts technology and artistry, filmmakers can bring an audience to a vegetable garden in Uganda, a fast food workers’ rights protest in New York City, or an urban farm in Singapore....

Reviewed By: Danielle Nierenberg and Katie Work

Monitoring food security in countries with conflict situations

August 15, 2016 Conflict is a leading cause of hunger  and this short document (42 pages) describes hunger resulting from conflict in 17 countries, countries where conflict and hunger have been substantial .  It is a joint study by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Fo...

Reviewed By: Lane Vanderslice

Nourishing millions: Stories of change in nutrition

July 15, 2016 This important new book, available as a free download on the IFPRI website, is a wonderful introduction to the issues involved in improving nutrition for poorly nourished people throughout the world. The first chapter gives an overview of n...

Reviewed By: Lane Vanderslice

The First 1000 Days: A crucial time for mothers and children—and the world

In his new book, The First 1,000 Days: A Crucial Time for Mothers and Children – and the World, journalist Roger Thurow chronicles the obstacles that women face around the globe. ...

Reviewed By: Allison Aubrey

The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century

In a groundbreaking book, based on six years of on the ground reporting, expert David Rieff offers a masterly review about whether ending extreme poverty and widespread hunger is within our reach as increasingly promised. Can we provide enough food for 9 billion (2 billion more than today) in 205...

Reviewed By: Sandra F. Joireman

Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women: A guide to measurement

Women of reproductive age (WRA) are often nutritionally vulnerable because of the physiological demands of pregnancy and lactation. Requirements for most nutrients are higher for pregnant and lactating women than for adult men. The Minimum Dietary Diversity for WRA (MDD-W) 3 indicator defined and de...

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Lamar, his sons and some other adolescent boys from their Milwaukee neighborhood are sitting around, playing cards and smoking blunts, when there is a loud and confident knock on the door, which could be “a landlord’s knock, or a sheriff’s.” Mercifully it is only Colin, a young white man fro...

Reviewed By: Barbara Erenreich

World Hunger: 10 Myths

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Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

In the late 1950s, Robert Putnam, the distinguished social scientist whose 'Bowling Alone' (2000) has become one of the most influential books of our time, lost his campaign for the presidency of his high school class in Port Clinton, Ohio. The victor was one of the few African Americans in the scho...

Reviewed By: Alan Wolfe