Overview

Journeying across Ghana's savannahs and cities, John Nott investigates how nutrition and capitalism have intersected to define health from colonial rule to the present. Between Feast and Famine unravels the intertwined histories of food, health, and capitalism in Ghana, charting the country's shifting nutritional landscape from colonial-era hunger crises to contemporary epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Moving between Ghana's diverse ecological and economic zones, John Nott excavates how uneven capitalist transformation reshaped diets and childhood nutrition across the twentieth century. At the heart of this story is the evolving science of nutrition itself, from its colonial-era applications to its role in shaping modern health policies. Using a new historical approach, Between Feast and Famine exposes how global scientific debates and local lived realities co-produced the country's shifting nutritional conditions. A necessary contribution to African history and medical humanities, this book debunks preconceived notions about hunger and public health, suggesting crucial insights into the complex relationship between food systems and human well-being.

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9781800087910

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Reviews

""This is a tour de force. Ghana was an important site for the development of nutritional science in the colonial period, as well as a site for its application. It is therefore central to the history of a global nutritional science. Not only has John Nott pieced together a complex history of that changing science and its application in Ghana in the twentieth century, he has also provided a carefully constructed analysis of what was actually happening in terms of food supply, health and nutrition in Ghana in this period. Few other works manage to do both these things.""-- ""Megan Vaughan, Professor of African History and Health, UCL's Institute of Advanced Studies""

Author Information

John Nott is a Research Fellow in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

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