HUNGER ON PLANET EARTH

From the barrage of statistics, quotations and thumbnail histories, two facts stand out: that North Americans, with 6% of the world's population, consume 40% of its resources; and that population is rising faster than any projected increase in the world's food supply. All of Archer's dense, rapid-fire arguments follow from one or the other hard truth, whether he's discussing the politics of hunger as it relates to America's domestic and foreign policies; the prospects of the green revolution and projected man-made protein substitutes; or the debate between those who see famine relief and intensified production as a solution and those who favor stringent population control and environmental protection. Compared to Pringle's Our Hungry Earth (p. 801, J-279) this is an unfocused and occasionally awkward compilation, but it's also far more challenging and politically sophisticated. Like Pringle, Archer advocates redistribution as a moral imperative, but he's devastatingly certain that it won't be enough.