Hunger: An Unnatural History

Sharman Apt Russell. Softcover. English. Basic Books, 2006. 262pp. ISBN-13: 9780465071654. ISBN-10: 0465071651. Every day, we wake up hungry. Every day, we break our fast. Hunger is both a natural and an unnatural human condition. In Hunger, Sharman Apt Russell explores the range of this primal experience. Step by step, Russell takes us through the physiology of hunger, from eighteen hours without food to thirty-six hours to three days to seven days to thirty days. In quiet, elegant prose, she asks a question as big as history and as everyday as skipping lunch: How does hunger work? This book explores the range of this primal experience, a biological process that transcends nature to shape the fabric of societies. In a survey of centuries of thought on hunger's unique power, she discovers an ability to adapt to it that is nothing short of miraculous. From the fasting saints of the early Christian church to activists like Mahatma Gandhi, generations have used hunger to make spiritual and political statements. Russell highlights these cases where hunger can inspire and even heal, but she also addresses the devastating impact of starvation on cultures around the world today..