The catchy title of this edited volume carries a double meaning. It refers to a historical map of Europe—reproduced on the book’s cover—that schematically depicts estimated levels of food shortages and the distribution of US food aid by country after World War I. Although largely unknown today, this image was widely used in US newspapers in 1918–19 to visualize Europe’s changing nutritional situation. At the same time, the editors employ the phrase figuratively to call for renewed historiographical attention to food shortages as a Europe-wide social phenomenon of World War I, with particular emphasis on East-Central Europe.
Food shortages during World War I have certainly not been ignored by historians, ethnologists, and other scholars. Indeed, no study of the period can overlook the issue. Most works address it at least in passing, and several minor as well as major studies in various languages are devoted entirely to the topic. What has been missing in this highly fragmented research landscape, however, is a volume that synthesizes and advances existing scholarship on the topic and can serve as a reference point for future research. Hunger Redraws the Map does precisely that.
In approaching the topic, the volume emphasizes three key aspects (11–13). First, it covers a vast geographic area, ranging from the United Kingdom to the Eurasian borderlands, with a particular emphasis on East-Central Europe. In contrast to Western Europe, food shortages in this region were not only more severe but also had a more profound impact amid protracted regional conflicts and state-building efforts in the wake of collapsing empires. Second, in line with the “Greater War” paradigm, the volume extends its scope beyond the 1918 armistice into the early 1920s. This is because in many parts of East-Central Europe, hunger became most acute after 1918, when humanitarian interventions also reached their peak. Finally, although the volume addresses war, it shifts the focus away from the battlefield, warfare, and soldiers to civilians and the “home front.” While the book does not seek to diminish the suffering of soldiers, it maintains that military personnel were usually in a better position to secure provisions.
Divided into 14 chapters and an introduction, the volume adopts a thematic approach to the topic. With one exception (Chapter 12 on Russia), the chapters do not focus on specific geographical areas but instead take a transnational approach, drawing on empirical data from various regions to support their arguments. This approach is particularly effective in overcoming the fragmentation of the existing literature and situating the findings within a broader context. At the same time, however, it does not support the development of a coherent narrative typically associated with more narrowly defined discursive communities.
Like many other social phenomena, hunger can be approached both quantitatively and qualitatively. Most chapters of the volume are qualitative and look at the individual coping strategies, collective actions, and market reactions as well as state policies to navigate through this crisis. This is the core interest of the book: the interplay between society, economy, and state under pressure of material hardship, reaching from individual experience to the heights of international politics. To put it simply, hunger was not only an accompanying phenomenon but a vehicle of change. It was also a discursive subject, and some chapters therefore focus not on hunger itself but on its representations and imagery. Chapter 6 focuses on daily press coverage and its emplotments of hunger, while Chapter 14 examines the visualization of hunger and shortage on maps.
Chapters 10 and 11 (and sections of several others) approach hunger through the use of economic, anthropometric, or medical statistics. Drawing on a variety of historical datasets, they show how contemporary officials, academics, or physicians used to measure the extent of the food crisis. At the same time, despite all the efforts, methods, and approaches, the authors conclude that this was an almost impossible task and that historians must take these limitations into account. It was not that quantitative approaches were inherently flawed and could not be employed, but rather that hunger was too individualized, and any attempts to classify larger groups and territories amounted to a simplification.
The hopes expressed by the editors at the end of the book—that future research will take hunger more fully into account (433)—already seem to be materializing, and this book will be an essential companion for any future efforts in this direction. This even calls for research beyond food shortages. Hunger is closely interrelated with other forms of deprivation and hardship that are also worthy of due attention from scholars. The production and distribution of food was hardly possible without coal and other sources of energy, which were in critically short supply during and after World War I. The same applies to the spread of infectious diseases such as the Spanish flu, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis, whose extreme death toll was closely linked to poverty and severe undernourishment.
In sum, this excellent edited volume provides a much-needed, one-volume transnational survey of hunger in Europe during and after World War I. Based on the existing literature but expanded by the team of authors’ own research, it is essential reading for anyone interested in the historical research of hunger not only in Europe during and after World War I, but in modern history in general.
