Hunger and nutrition are central to public health social stability and a balanced economy. A
powerful interdisciplinary field has recently emerged among demographers cultural economic
and science historians around food studies. This book is a study of the historical interactions
between diet hunger and health in contemporary Europe. The author uses archival sources from
the League of Nations the Food and Agriculture Organisation the United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Health Organisation to
show the impact of food shortages on the health of the European population during the first
half of the twentieth century. In the context of the international diplomatic reaction and
national health and nutritional policies the book shows how these exceptional circumstances
led to new scientific research the production and circulation of scientific knowledge and the
political role of experts as a new political economy of scientific knowledge about food and
diet was developed during the central decades of the twentieth century.
