This is not a cookbook. It contains food for thought - and the recipes of power.

800 million live under the constant threat of famine. Most are food-producing peasants in the Third World. The baffling question is: why are so many food-producers, rather than we, the consumers, the first to go hungry?

Susan George takes a cold, clear look at the facts and myths of food production, and provides answers. She considers its history, from its origins 10,000 years ago to the Global Supermarket of today. Cliches and half-truths about over-population, climate and inefficient farming, usually given as the reasons for Third World hunger, are discarded. She exposes the ruthless game of multi-national agri-business, the methods of New Malthusianism and neo-colonialism. She unmasks pious aid programmes and reveals the basis of further exploitation.

Food for Beginners is a disturbing book: the facts are grim, the picture bleak. But the wit, sheer logic and force of this documentary comicbook, point beyond despair to justice.