Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food

by George Kent

Book Overview

There is, literally, a world of difference between the statements "Everyone should have adequate food," and "Everyone has the right to adequate food." In George Kent's view, the lofty rhetoric of the first statement will not be fulfilled until we take the second statement seriously. Kent sees hunger as a deeply political problem. Too many people do not have adequate control over local resources and cannot create the circumstances that would allow...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1589010566
• ISBN13: 9781589010567
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A critical scrutiny of hunger as a political problem

Freedom From Want: The Human Right To Adequate Food is a critical scrutiny of hunger as a political problem, stressing that feeding people will not solve what is wrong - feeding programs can only be a short-term, symptomatic treatment, not a cure. The real solution, stresses political science professor George Kent, is empowering the poor - too many people have too little control over local resources, and cannot shape their own circumstances to provide meaningful or productive work. Only when the poor are fully empowered, a duty that those who have the power must undertake, can the human right to adequate food truly be realized for everyone. A meticulously scholarly, extensively researched treatise, and a vital contribution to understanding a desperate global problem.