Hunger as Policy: Diagnosing the Politics of Famine

It took ordinary medical examinations in the factories of 1930s Recife for a young doctor to realize that the city's labor force was being slowly starved to death. When he presented that conclusion to the men who owned the mills, rather than debate his findings, they simply fired him. “I know what my patients have,” Josué de Castro said as he left. “But I can’t cure them because I’m a doctor and…