This volume is the first of three addressing a wide range of policy issues relating to the role of public action in combating hunger and deprivation in the modern world. It deals with the background nutritional, economic, social, and political aspects of the problem of world hunger. Topics
covered include the characteristics and causal antecedents of famines and endemic deprivation, the interconnections between economic and political factors, the role of social relations and the family, the special problems of women's deprivation, the connection between food consumption and other
indicators of living standards, and the medical aspects of undernourishment and its consequences. Several contributions also address the political background of public policy, in particular the connection between the government and the public, including the role of newspapers and the media, and the
part played by political commitment and by adversarial politics and pressures. Taken together, these essays provide a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the problem of hunger deprivation, and an important guide for action. This work will interest development and agricultural economists,
political economists, and those working in public bodies at national and international levels concerned with the management of food and health resources.

Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen: Introduction; Amartya Sen: Food, Economics and Entitlements; Ravi Kanbur: Global Food Balances and Individual Hunger: an Entitlements Based Approach; Rehman Sobhan: The Politics of Hunger and Entitlement; Kirit Parikh: Chronic Hunger in the World: Impact of International Policies; N. Ram: An Independent Press and Anti-Hunger Strategies: the Indian Experience; Partha Dasgupta and Debraj Ray: Adapting to Undernourishment: the Biological Evidence and its Implications; S.R. Osmani: Nutrition and the Economics of Food: Implications of Some Recent Controversies; Sudhir Anand and Christopher Harris: Food and Standard of Living: an Analysis Based on Sri Lankan Data; Barbara Harriss: The Intrafamily Distribution of Hunger in South Asia; Ann Whitehead: Rural Women and Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa