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Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty

RESEARCH Book by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman
Map of Africa on a globe with a blank black background
James Wiseman

Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman, award-winning writers on Africa, development, and agriculture, explain through vivid human stories how our sometimes well-intentioned strategies—alternating with ignorance and neglect—have conspired to keep the world's poorest people hungry and unable to feed themselves.

For more than 40 years, humankind has had the knowledge, tools, and resources to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet at the start of the twenty-first century, 25,000 people a day—and nearly six million children a year—die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases. Malnutrition kills more Africans than AIDS and malaria combined. We in the West tend to think of famine as a natural disaster, brought about by drought; or as the legacy of war and corrupt leaders. But Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman, award-winning writers on Africa, development, and agriculture, see famine as the result of bad policies spanning the political spectrum. In this compelling investigative narrative, they explain through vivid human stories how the agricultural revolutions that transformed Asia and Latin America stopped short in Africa, and how our sometimes well-intentioned strategies—alternating with ignorance and neglect—have conspired to keep the world’s poorest people hungry and unable to feed themselves.

Tthey argue passionately and convincingly that this generation is the one that could finally end the scourge that has haunted the human race since its beginning.

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About the Authors
Roger Thurow
Former Senior Fellow, Global Food and Agriculture
Headshot for Roger Thurow
Roger Thurow spent three decades at The Wall Street Journal as a foreign correspondent based in Europe and Africa prior to joining the Council in 2010. His coverage spanned the fall of the Berlin Wall, the release of Nelson Mandela, the end of apartheid, and humanitarian crises. He is the author of three books.
Headshot for Roger Thurow
Scott Kilman
Freelance Journalist and Author
Scott Kilman covered agriculture at The Wall Street Journal for two decades. In 2005, Thurow and Kilman were honored by the United Nations for their reporting on humanitarian and development issues.