Drawing on recently released Soviet archival materials, Hunger and War investigates state food supply policy and its impact on Soviet society during World War II. It explores the role of the state in provisioning the urban population, particularly workers, with food; feeding the Red army; the medicalization of hunger; hunger in blockaded Leningrad; and civilian mortality from hunger and malnutrition in other home front industrial regions. New research reported here challenges and complicates many of the narratives and counter-narratives about the war. The authors engage such difficult subjects as starvation mortality, bitterness over privation and inequalities in provisioning, and conflicts among state organizations. At the same time, they recognize the considerable role played by the Soviet state in organizing supplies of food to adequately support the military effort and defense production and in developing policies that promoted social stability amid upheaval. The book makes a significant contribution to scholarship on the Soviet population's experience of World War II as well as to studies of war and famine.

Drawing on recently released Soviet archival materials, Hunger and War investigates state food supply policy and its impact on Soviet society during World War II. It explores the role of the state in provisioning the urban population, particularly workers, with food; feeding the Red army; the medicalization of hunger; hunger in blockaded Leningrad; and civilian mortality from hunger and malnutrition in other home front industrial regions. New research reported here challenges and complicates many of the narratives and counter-narratives about the war. The authors engage such difficult subjects as starvation mortality, bitterness over privation and inequalities in provisioning, and conflicts among state organizations. At the same time, they recognize the considerable role played by the Soviet state in organizing supplies of food to adequately support the military effort and defense production and in developing policies that promoted social stability amid upheaval. The book makes a significant contribution to scholarship on the Soviet population's experience of World War II as well as to studies of war and famine.

David Alexander provides a concise yet comprehensive and systematic primer on how to prepare for a disaster. The book introduces the methods, procedures, protocols and strategies of emergency planning, with an emphasis on situations within industrialized countries. It is designed to be a reference source and manual from which emergency mangers can extract ideas, suggestions and pro-forma methodologies to help them design and implement emergency plans.

World poverty is both an intractable and ever-mutable problem. It has afflicted humanity since the earliest times, but its basic features - aside from the constant, want - have evolved as history has moved from epoch to epoch. Today, there is broad recognition that a significant segment of the global population (the 'bottom billion,' to use Paul Collier's term) is impoverished despite the globalization of the world economy. Two questions - why destitution is so persistent despite massive global economic growth and what can be done about it - have animated debates among development scholars and poverty researchers for decades. Those who concentrate on the first question focus on the failure of anti-poverty efforts and typically stress why particular solutions on offer have not worked. Those addressing the second question have focused on either improving material conditions or on creating institutional frameworks (economic, social and political) that will allow the masses in poor countries to escape from poverty. Yet until now, virtually no one has addressed in a substantial way the most basic precondition for alleviating poverty: human safety. In most poverty-stricken areas of the world, violence is endemic. Whether it is generated by criminals who operate with complete abandon or by the state itself via predatory police forces, violence and threat of it have locked hundreds of millions of people into poverty. Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros's The Locust Effect focuses on the central role of violence in perpetuating poverty, and shows that if any headway is to be made, this issue has to become a top priority for policymakers. Simply put, if people aren't safe, nothing else matters. Shipping grain to the poor, helping them vote, or assisting their efforts to start a farm is irrelevant. Whatever material improvements we provide will simply wash away in the face of the corrupt police forces, out-of-control, armies, private militias, organized criminals, and - not least - failed justice systems that plague poor countries. Throughout, the book will feature real-world stories ranging from Thailand to Bolivia to India to Nigeria that vividly depict how violence undercuts antipoverty efforts. While they argue that this violence is the fundamental issue facing the antipoverty movement, they do not merely identify the problem. They also draw from their experience running the International Justice Mission to show that ground-up efforts to reform legal and public justice systems can generate real, positive results. Sweeping in geographical scope and filled with unforgettable stories of individuals trapped within the mutually reinforcing cycle of poverty and violence, The Locust Effect will force us to rethink everything we know about the causes of poverty and why it is so difficult to root out.

In December 2004 the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated coastal regions of Sri Lanka. Six months later, Michele Ruth Gamburd returned to the village where she had been conducting research for many years and began collecting residents' stories of the disaster and its aftermath: the chaos and loss of the flood itself; the sense of community and leveling of social distinctions as people worked together to recover and regroup; and the local and national politics of foreign aid as the country began to rebuild. In The Golden Wave, Gamburd describes how the catastrophe changed social identities, economic dynamics, and political structures.

In December 2004 the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated coastal regions of Sri Lanka. Six months later, Michele Ruth Gamburd returned to the village where she had been conducting research for many years and began collecting residents' stories of the disaster and its aftermath: the chaos and loss of the flood itself; the sense of community and leveling of social distinctions as people worked together to recover and regroup; and the local and national politics of foreign aid as the country began to rebuild. In The Golden Wave, Gamburd describes how the catastrophe changed social identities, economic dynamics, and political structures.

A detailed first-hand account-and critical analysis-of the impact of the first contingent of American Peace Corps volunteers to live and work in Nepal, arriving in 1962 just following the King's seizure of absolute power and the tentative opening of the country to the outside world. The account not only explores the successes and failures of the volunteers in their efforts to have a positive effect on Nepalese development, but also the reverse effects of their transformative experience on the lives of the volunteers themselves. The narrative is further expanded as the author places the mission in the broader perspective of the globalization process that has so expanded our world in the past 50 years. A richly rewarding account for all with interests in globalization, social change, and transnational anthropology.

For more than 50 years, the United States, which accounts for about half of global food aid supplies, has played an important role in alleviating malnutrition and hunger, especially during emergencies. In fiscal year 2010, the United States spent about $1.5 billion on emergency food aid that reached about 46.5 million beneficiaries. To preserve the nutritional value of food aid, quality controls are in place throughout the supply chain. This book examines select assessments of international food aid with a focus on how better nutrition and quality control can further improve U.S. food aid; the extent to which U.S. agencies meet requirements to ensure that monetization does not cause adverse market impacts; and the USDA's oversight of the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program.

On June 1, 2011, a super cell thunderstorm developed over Western Massachusetts, producing an EF3 tornado that cut a 39-mile track of destruction across the state. Despite ample warnings, this event took everyone by surprise. These are the stories of survivors and emergency responders who saw firsthand what happened when this life changing tornado touched down.

For four consecutive days in early 2010, it was the number one news story in the world.

Ten Americans left the security and comfort of their homes, placed jobs on hold, and left family and friends behind to help Haitian children victimized by the January 12, 2010, earthquake. Despite their admirable intents, the Christians were charged with kidnapping, criminal association, and attempting to arrange "irregular" travel.

What Satan intended for evil, God used for good. Experience their unwavering faith. Experience their reliance on God's sustaining power, His endless grace, and His abiding presence. And trust, as they trust, that God will use their sacrifices to bring about meaningful change in Haiti. The full measure of their service is yet to be realized ...

THE HILLSBOROUGH DISASTER - Saturday, the 15th of April 1989 - when 96 innocent men, women and children lost their lives, in Britain's worst ever sporting disaster. WITH HOPE IN YOUR HEART: A HILLSBOROUGH SURVIVOR'S STORY, THE DENIAL OF JUSTICE & A PERSONAL BATTLE OF PTSD - is the REAL, SHOCKING STORY OF HILLSBOROUGH. It is unique as it is written through the eyes of a survivor. It is told by someone who witnessed at first hand all the death and carnage from Pen 4 - one of the two central pens in which the majority of the 96 died. It shockingly tells of the glaring police failures, the lies, the cover ups, the fabrications, the suppression of evidence and the blatant denial of justice over almost a quarter of a century in the biggest single miscarriage of justice in the history of the British legal system. It tells of the bravery of the survivors and the bereaved families in their quest for truth and justice, and tells the shocking reality of what lengths that government, the police, the judiciary, writers and the media will go to, in order to hide the truth.

There's no doubt that Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating weather events to hit the United States-costing lives, property, and prosperity. In "Catastrophic Gumbo, " author Alvin JacQues provides a firsthand look at the facts, drama, details, and aftermath of this powerful storm. A survivor of Hurricane Katrina, JacQues considers himself lucky to be alive, and he credits his strong faith in God for both his survival and the opportunity to tell his story. In this memoir, he examines the enormous devastation and causalities and tells a heroic tale of survival. "Catastrophic Gumbo" includes more than thirty stories that describe what really happened during this natural disaster-including his rescue by the Coast Guard, his experience of six days of chaos at the Superdome, the drowning of his mother, the ever-present death and destruction that he witnessed, and the corruption of the New Orleans Police Department. A compelling account, "Catastrophic Gumbo" gives a behind-the-scenes and personal look at the before, during, and after of this tragedy that hit Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in 2005.

Who will step up to meet the challenge of the next rural crisis?
Rural practice presents important yet challenging issues for psychology, especially given uneven population distribution, high levels of need, limited availability of rural services, and ongoing migration to urban centers. It is critical that mental health professionals and first responders in rural areas become aware of recent research, training and approaches to crisis intervention, traumatology, compassion fatigue, disaster mental health, critical incident stress management, post-traumatic stress and related areas in rural environments. Critical issues facing rural areas include:
Physical issues such as land, air, and water resources, cheap food policy, chemicals and pesticides, animal rights, corruption in food marketing and distribution, and land appropriation for energy development. Quality of life issues such as rural America's declining share of national wealth, problems of hunger, education, and rural poverty among rural populations of farmers and ranchers. Direct service issues include the need to accommodate a wide variety of mental health difficulties, client privacy and boundaries, and practical challenges. Indirect service issues include the greater need for diverse professional activities, collaborative work with professionals having different orientations and beliefs, program development and evaluation, and conducting research with few mentors or peer collaborators. Professional training and development issues include lack of specialized relevant courses and placements. Personal issues include limited opportunities for recreation, culture, and lack of privacy.
Doherty's first volume in this new series "Crisis in the American Heartland" explores these and many other issues. Social Science: Disasters & Disaster Relief
For more information please visit www.RMRInstitute.org

On April 20, 2010, the "Deepwater Horizon" oil rig exploded, killing eleven workers and creating the largest oil spill in the history of U.S. offshore drilling. But this wasn't the first time British Petroleum and its cost-cutting practices destroyed parts of the natural world. It also was not the first time that BP's negligence resulted in the loss of human life, ruined family businesses, or shattered dreams. From Alaska to Kansas to the Gulf, journalist Mike Magner has been tracking BP's reckless path for years, and in "Poisoned Legacy" he focuses, for the first time, on the human price of BP's rise to power.

Food aid has become a contentious issue in recent decades, with sharp disagreements over genetically modified crops, agricultural subsidies, and ways of guaranteeing food security in the face of successive global food crises. In Hunger in the Balance, Jennifer Clapp provides a timely and comprehensive account of the contemporary politics of food aid, explaining the origins and outcomes of recent clashes between donor nations and between donors and recipients.

She identifies fundamental disputes between donors over "tied" food aid, which requires that food be sourced in the donor country, versus "untied" aid, which provides cash to purchase food closer to the source of hunger. These debates have been especially intense between the major food aid donors, particularly the European Union and the United States. Similarly, the EU's rejection of GMO agricultural imports has raised concerns among recipients about accepting GMO foodstuffs from the United States. For the several hundred million people who at present have little choice but to rely on food aid for their daily survival, Clapp concludes, the consequences of these political differences are profound."