The politics of hunger: Protest, poverty and policy in England, c. 1750–c. 1840

The politics of hunger: Protest, poverty and policy in England, c. 1750–c. 1840
ISBN-10
1526145618
ISBN-13
9781526145611
Series
The Politics of Hunger
Category
History
Pages
296
Language
English
Published
2020-02-18
Publisher
Manchester University Press
Author
Carl J. Griffin

Description

The 1840s witnessed widespread hunger and malnutrition at home and mass starvation in Ireland. And yet the aptly named ‘Hungry 40s’ came amidst claims that, notwithstanding Malthusian prophecies, absolute biological want had been eliminated in England. The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were supposedly the period in which the threat of famine lifted for the peoples of England. But hunger remained, in the words of Marx, an ‘unremitted pressure’. The politics of hunger offers the first systematic analysis of the ways in which hunger continued to be experienced and feared, both as a lived and constant spectral presence. It also examines how hunger was increasingly used as a disciplining device in new modes of governing the population. Drawing upon a rich archive, this innovative and conceptually-sophisticated study throws new light on how hunger persisted as a political and biological force.

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