Tag: Great Famine
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Famines throughout history
Since times immemorial there have been numerous famines in the world. Droughts, floods, and crop failures have claimed millions of lives, often the consequence of wars, injudicious policies, repressive measures, but frequently described as inevitable or attributed to supernatural causes. The earliest famines recorded in history occurred during the first dynasties of ancient Egypt,…
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Starvation as metaphor
Michael Shulman Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The mystery of FoodIncreased till I abjured itAnd dine without Like God— Emily Dickinson Susan Sontag’s 1978 essay Illness as Metaphor,1 published in serial form in The New York Review of Books, was a cultural event that continues to stimulate reflection and analysis forty years later. Based on an examination…