José Feeds the World: How a Famous Chef Feeds Millions of People in Need Worldwide February 29 2024, by David Unger and illustrated by Marta Alvarez Miguéns.

 

 

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David Unger’s new book is the true story of José Andrés, an award-winning chef, food activist, and founder of World Central Kitchen.[1] This disaster relief organisation helps working-class communities when catastrophe hits. Although primarily aimed at children, adult readers learn much from Unger's understated and thoughtful text.

The book is beautifully illustrated by Marta Alvarez Miguéns, a freelance illustrator based in La Coruña, Spain. Her previous works have included A Tiger Called Tomás, Dinosaur Lady and Shark Lady, which was named a Best STEM Book by the Children's Book Council and the National Science Teachers Association.

Jose Andres and his organisation are very busy at the moment. Every day, a new disaster, war, appears, coupled with the massive growth of world poverty and hunger. According to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and World Health Organization (WHO), have reported that up to 828 million people, nearly 11 per cent of the world’s population, faced hunger in 2022. The number has grown by about 140 million since the start of the pandemic.

There is no doubt about Andres's sincerity and bravery in alleviating world hunger and poverty, saying, “What we’ve been able to do is weaponise empathy. Without empathy, nothing works.”.But the cruel reality is that Andres's work is insufficient to defeat world hunger and poverty.

Jean Shaoul writes, “World leaders are acutely aware of the repercussions of the spiralling cost of food as workers demand pay increases and take to the streets in protest over their deteriorating living conditions in rich and poor countries alike. But the fight for decent wages, affordable food, necessities and a massive increase in wages means that the working class must unite across workplaces, industries, countries and continents in a global political struggle against the capitalist class and its governments and to put an end to the imperialist war.”[2]

 

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[1] www.globalcitizen.org

[2] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/10/hung-j10.html

Keeping the historical record and its historiography accurate

Almost a decade ago, in May, 2014, I was able to go to Trinity Hall in the University of Cambridge to hear John Walter of the University of Essex reflect on the development of his career from his time as an undergraduate in Cambridge, his period at the University of Pennsylvania and, subsequently, as an academic historian on the University of Essex’s campus in Wivenhoe. It was a privilege to be there and to hear him discuss the work of historians who had influenced him as well as the intellectual trajectory of his own studies. One thing, however, did strike me very forcibly on that occasion, namely, that no measures had been taken to record what he had said. That was a misfortune and a loss to future historians.

Since then, largely as a result of the deeply regrettable impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, many universities have adopted the practice of allowing their seminars to be accessible via the internet. I can sit in my small study overlooking the wood and river to the south of my house and watch a large number of historians delivering papers on their research and work to live audiences and to larger groups of postgraduates and historians online. This has made it possible for me to listen to and see major figures in my own field of early modern history, people like Nicholas Tyacke, John Morrill, Blair Worden, Keith Thomas, Alan Macfarlane, Richard Cust, Peter Lake and many others. I have also been able to sit in on papers given by younger historians, many of whom are likely to become significant players in the discipline in the years ahead.

Nonetheless, most of the seminars I have witnessed online have taken place in the United Kingdom at the Universities of Oxford and Reading or at the Institute of Historical Research in the University of London. It has been much more difficult to find such seminars in countries like Canada and the United States of America, in Australia or New Zealand or on the European continent. I have certainly become aware of a great deal of interesting research and writing being done in those places but seeing and hearing their work being discussed is much more of a problem. Perhaps, there may be those historians who can help on this issue out there.

 

Christopher Thompson