Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780300195811)

An authoritative study of food politics in the socialist regimes of China and the Soviet Union

During the twentieth century, 80 percent of all famine victims worldwide died in China and the Soviet Union. In this rigorous and thoughtful study, Felix Wemheuer analyzes the historical and political roots of these socialist-era famines, in which overambitious industrial programs endorsed by Stalin and Mao Zedong created greater disasters than those suffered under prerevolutionary regimes.

Focusing on famine as a political tool, Wemheuer systematically exposes how conflicts about food among peasants, urban populations, and the socialist state resulted in the starvation death of millions. A major contribution to Chinese and Soviet history, this provocative analysis examines the long-term effects of the great famines on the relationship between the state and its citizens and argues that the lessons governments learned from the catastrophes enabled them to overcome famine in their later decades of rule.

Author: Felix Wemheuer
ISBN-10: 0300195818
ISBN-13: 9780300195811
Publisher: Yale University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/26/2014
Pages: 344
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.33lbs
Size: 9.39h x 6.30w x 0.86d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2015 pg. 1227