New perspectives on the history of famine-and the possibility of a famine-free worldFamines are becoming smaller and rarer, but optimism about the possibility of a famine-free future must be tempered by the threat of global warming. That is just one of the arguments that Cormac O Grada, one of the world's leading authorities on the history and "Ó Gráda's book offers a sobering reminder of the importance of making judgments based on good data and unhindered by ideological filters."---Douglas Gollin, Foreign Affairs