Abiding Hunger: An American Paradox

A thorough and urgent examination of America’s oldest, most enduring contradiction: hunger in the land of abundance.

Throughout his time as foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Roger Thurow covered humanitarian stories from all over the world, including famine in Ethiopia and the devastating impacts of international food crises. It was generally accepted that hunger was a problem outside of America—something that happened “over there.” But after Hurricane Katrina exposed the poverty and want hidden within so many communities, Thurow began to understand that hunger was a much more widespread problem than America was willing to admit. 

Thurow explores the history of hunger in America, from the Starving Time of Jamestown—when cannibalism nearly doomed the American experiment before it could begin—through the Trail of Tears, slavery that built an empire with stolen land and stolen labor, and Jim Crow segregation at the lunch counter. He shows how deeply hunger is woven into our present day, in which 38 million people—including 14 million children—are classified as “food insecure,” and many food bank clients must make heartbreaking choices between paying for food and other necessities, like rent, utilities, and medical care. 

This book reveals what so many Americans have trained themselves not to see: the “hidden hunger” that touches every state, every county, and every community in the United States. It is an urgent reckoning, asking why hunger persists in this land of great abundance—and what it will take, finally, to end it.