This is an ambitious book with an attractive title upon which one expects to learn how China succeeded or failed in its ongoing combat against mass hunger and poverty in the past 300 years. The term “North China” should be taken with caution as it is roughly modern-day Hebei Province exclusively, not the conventional huabei region including six core provinces (Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Sshanxi, Shaanxi, and Anhui), if not counting Inner Mongolia as well.

Structurally, the twelve chapters of the book can be divided into three parts. Chapters 1, 3, 4, and 7, about a third of the book length, deal with conditions for food supply and demand. Such conditions include the local climatic pattern, crop types, population density, and food prices. Chapters 2, 5, 6, 8, and 9, counting for just under half of the book length, are on the success story of the Qing imperial state in handling food security in the province. The remaining chapters 10 to 12 tackle the issue of food crises after 1900. In this regard, the book leans overwhelmingly towards the state. The market is not treated as the counterweight against the state in the usual “market-state” dichotomy. The issue of “environmental decline” remains more or less tacit most of the time.

Overall, the main strength of the book is in its data exacted from a wide range of sources. Students and scholars in the field of modern Chinese history will find them very helpful. The part on the Qing state is particularly well developed in terms of state philosophy on food entitlement, state monitoring food demand and supply, state provision of public granaries, and famine relief schemes. However, the observation, analysis, and conclusion of the author still follow the way set up by Pierre-Etienne and Roy Bin Wong (Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1991).

The part on China's war economy from 1900 to 1949 (chapters 10 and 11) is to some extent ambiguous. There is no systematic explanation of what was changed in regimes, ranging from the Northern Warlords (Beiyang Junfa), Republicans (or Guomingdang) to Japanese colonizers, and how such changes meant for ordinary people's food entitlement. It is rather misleading to make the Republicans liable for food crises (p. 307), as the Nanjing government controlled Hebei Province for just 12 years (1928–1938, 1946–1948). The part on the Communist Era is extremely short for its significance. There is no new insight on the world's largest peacetime famine from 1959 to 1961 under Mao's rule or on stagnation of Chinese agriculture under collectivization from 1956 to 1976. With the book title, one naturally wonders whether Mao was busy fighting famine or busy making one. This is supported by the fact that during the Great Leap Famine, Mao's government exported large quantities of food and that Mao's food rationing after 1958 only allowed for about 2,000 kilocalories per person per day, lower than China's average in the early 1930s. Rather, the author cites China's official line that Hebei's grain per capita increased most of the time after 1960. Even if this growth was true, it did not mean ordinary citizens were permitted to consume more food. Rather, Mao's peacetime food rationing remained frozen for 20 years (p. 355). Mao's growth failed to benefit the producers. The revival of China's agriculture after 1978 is view as a market-driven growth. This may well be true. But the author fails to explain why and how the same market did not prevent food crises before 1949.

The main problem with this book is the lack of a clearly laid hypothesis, theory, or methodology. In addition, there is no systematic review of the literature (until the final conclusion). The author has very static view on human response to climate. Given the numerous rivers in the province, the author does not discuss the widespread irrigation technology in Heibei as a main method for private farmers to overcome droughts. Only the state initiative in flood control and canal shipping is on the agenda. Similarly, the author gives the impression that the root of the food problem was Hebei's constant increase in population, overlooking the Qing scheme of “resettlement in Manchuria” with which large number of farmers successfully moved out of Hebei (as well as neighboring Shandong and Sshanxi) for a new life. On the other hand, the author also moves freely from autarky to the free market with the same sort of data. Typically, droughts are lined up with food prices to show food shortage in the province. This can only be true if there had been no food import from and export to the province. If, as the author suggests, Hebei province already enjoyed market integration with Fengtian province (known for its food surpluses), the local food prices are not good proxies for food shortage. Moreover, there is no attempt to examine changes in people's incomes in relation to changes in food prices. Simply, if the income level increased faster (due to e.g., cash crops such as cotton and tobacco) than food prices, there was no crisis. The discussion of copper-silver exchange rates helps very little simply because we do not know the actual money supply in Heibei or in the entire empire. As is well documented, in the nineteenth century, counterfeit coins took over the market in many parts of China which led to massive inflation of the copper currency. That in turn made silver look deflationary. To blame the use of silver attacks but the straw man.

Given the strength and weakness, some caution will be needed when one uses this book.