The New Breadline

Hunger and Hope in the Twenty-First Century

By: Jean-Martin Bauer

Narrated by: Jean-Martin Bauer

Length: 9 hrs

Publisher's summary

A humanitarian leader with more than two decades of experience working for the United Nations takes aim at the global food crisis—revealing how hunger anywhere affects lives everywhere and what steps we can take to change course.

"This book should be required reading for the entire human race."—Jonathan Safran Foer, author of We Are the Weather

At the turn of the twenty-first century, more than 150 countries pledged to eradicate hunger by 2030. But with only a few years left, we’re far from reaching that goal. Instead, hunger is on the rise—America itself recently experienced levels of food insecurity not seen since the Great Depression. How could the richest nation in the world have so many people going hungry?

In The New Breadline, aid worker and activist Jean-Martin Bauer unravels this paradox. Bauer’s family fled to America during the terrors of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. Now on the brink of mass starvation, Haiti and its grim history inspired Bauer to make food justice his life's work. During his long career with the UN, Bauer learned firsthand that the problem of hunger is always political—and like all political conditions, hunger, he knew, was something we could work to change.

Traveling to the most hunger-prone countries across the globe—from Haiti, where elites hoard imported French cheese, to Madagascar, where foreign corporations are snatching up valuable land from local farmers, to right here in America, where the lines at food banks continue to grow—Bauer weaves profound personal insight with a keen understanding of the structural systems of racism, classism, and sexism that thwart true progress in the battle against hunger. The New Breadline is an inspiring call to action to end what he persuasively argues is one of the greatest threats to our society, boldly envisioning a world where we can always feed ourselves and one another.

©2024 Jean-Martin Bauer (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“No subject more urgently requires our attention than world hunger. I cannot imagine a more thoughtful and humane introduction to the crisis of food security than The New Breadline."
—Jonathan Safran Foer, author of We Are the Weather

“Few writers tackle the world of international hunger, and Jean-Martin Bauer has seen what they’ve missed. His years on the frontlines in battle against malnutrition have made him acutely sensitive to what works, and what doesn’t. But Bauer weaves his knowledge into prose that reads like he's sharing stories late at night under a kerosene lamp. The New Breadline is a tremendous book that’ll linger long after you’ve turned the last page.”—Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved

“The New Breadline is a narratively-compelling, timely, and prescriptive book about the problems of hunger and food security in today’s world. Bauer writes with intelligence and brio about a topic he knows extremely well. Drawing on a superb grasp of history and his own experiences as a humanitarian worker who has dealt with food crises around the world—everywhere from Haiti and the Middle East to Africa—Bauer offers practical pathways to hope.”—Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad