Reminder: 22 August @ 7:30 pm; Selection: A Problem from Hell (Samantha Power)
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PNP Public Affairs book group
Aug 15, 2011, 8:12:28 AM8/15/11
to Public Affairs P&P
NOTE: At the August meeting we will be selecting a title for October.
In an effort to encourage greater diversity in the topics we cover,
everyone (who plans to attend the August meeting) is encouraged to
select a paperback book currently in stock at P&P, with public affairs
implications, in either the Religion or Health/Health Care category,
to present at the meeting. All proposed titles, in addition to those
in the queue, will be considered.
22 August Selection: A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of
Genocide (Samantha Power)
26 September Selection: Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global
Economy's New Killing Fields (Charles Bowden)
In an effort to encourage greater diversity in the topics we cover,
everyone (who plans to attend the August meeting) is encouraged to
select a paperback book currently in stock at P&P, with public affairs
implications, in either the Religion or Health/Health Care category,
to present at the meeting. All proposed titles, in addition to those
in the queue, will be considered.
22 August Selection: A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of
Genocide (Samantha Power)
26 September Selection: Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global
Economy's New Killing Fields (Charles Bowden)
Ira Klein
Aug 16, 2011, 6:16:28 PM8/16/11
to public-a...@googlegroups.com, Ira Klein
I expect to bring a book in the health and public policy arena by Mike Davis called "Late Victorian Holocausts." Politics and Prose assures they can get ample copies within a week of an order. The book isn't short but at 390 pages it's considerably shorter than our last couple of selections.
The book is written for a general audience but obtained considerable professional regard, winning the World History Association award for 2002. It links global drought, famine, illness and death in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to recent climate change and drought theory. Focusing on Brazil, India and China it emphasizes equally how imperial or governmental policies exacerbated famines. According to Davis, high, monetary land assessments forced peasants, for example, into cash crop, export agriculture, and deprived them of subsistence, instigating dire famines even when food was available (but too expensive for the masses). The result was huge death tolls from the diseases of malnutrition--and I would add the diseases of environmental disruption. The thesis is sounder and less extreme than Naomi Klein's, but is sufficiently controversial to provoke a lively discussion I think. I am interested in reading the book carefully because my colleagues tell me its India chapters borrow substantially from some of my writing, although Davis and I have come to somewhat different conclusions. On the downside, the book is not about current events and deals with health mainly as a byproduct of drought and economic disruptions. But it will suffice I think in the absence of anything more compelling.
-----public-a...@googlegroups.com wrote: -----
The book is written for a general audience but obtained considerable professional regard, winning the World History Association award for 2002. It links global drought, famine, illness and death in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to recent climate change and drought theory. Focusing on Brazil, India and China it emphasizes equally how imperial or governmental policies exacerbated famines. According to Davis, high, monetary land assessments forced peasants, for example, into cash crop, export agriculture, and deprived them of subsistence, instigating dire famines even when food was available (but too expensive for the masses). The result was huge death tolls from the diseases of malnutrition--and I would add the diseases of environmental disruption. The thesis is sounder and less extreme than Naomi Klein's, but is sufficiently controversial to provoke a lively discussion I think. I am interested in reading the book carefully because my colleagues tell me its India chapters borrow substantially from some of my writing, although Davis and I have come to somewhat different conclusions. On the downside, the book is not about current events and deals with health mainly as a byproduct of drought and economic disruptions. But it will suffice I think in the absence of anything more compelling.
-----public-a...@googlegroups.com wrote: -----
To: "Public Affairs P&P" <public-a...@googlegroups.com>
From: PNP Public Affairs book group
Sent by: public-a...@googlegroups.com
Date: 08/15/2011 08:12AM
Subject: [PNP Public Affairs Book Group] Reminder: 22 August @ 7:30 pm; Selection: A Problem from Hell (Samantha Power)
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