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Price: $29.95

Format:
Hardback 272 pp.
135 mm x 216 mm

ISBN-10:
0199569843

ISBN-13:
9780199569847

Publication date:
August 2010

Imprint: OUP UK

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Famine and Foreigners

Ethiopia since Live Aid

Peter Gill

The terrible 1984 famine in Ethiopia focused the world's attention on the country and the issue of aid as never before. Anyone over the age of 30 remembers something of the events - if not the original TV pictures, then Band Aid and Live Aid, Geldof and Bono. Peter Gill was the first journalist to reach the epicentre of the famine and one of the TV reporters who brought the tragedy to light. This book is the story of what happened to Ethiopia in the 25 years following Live Aid: the place, the people, the westerners who have tried to help, and the wider multinational aid business that has come into being. We saved countless lives in the beginning and continued to save them now, but have we done much else to transform the lives of Ethiopia's poor and set them on a 'development' course that will enable the country to do without us?

Readership : General readers who recollect the events of Live Aid and those with an interest in Ethiopia and Africa's needs. Those engaged directly with aid agencies or NGOs and charities.

Reviews

  • "Thank God for great journalism. This book is a much needed, exhaustively researched and effortlessly well written recent history of Ethiopia. A book that strips away the cant and rumour, the pros and antis and thoroughly explains the people, politics and economics of that most beautiful nation. A superb and vital piece of work by someone who clearly loves the country of which he writes."

    --Bob Geldof
  • "No outsider understands Ethiopia better than Peter Gill. He combines compassion with a clinical commitment to the truth. He writes with verve and an eye for telling detail. The result is a major contribution to the compelling story of this remarkable nation."

    --Jonathan Dimbleby
  • "Famine and Foreigners is the essential book on Ethiopia, the world's crucible for hunger and poverty -- and development theory and practice. Moving between the lives of ordinary Ethiopians and the controversies among their leaders and the theoreticians of international development, Peter Gill guides the reader through a fascinating story of suffering, resilience and enthusiasm - often misguided - for formulae for development."

    --Alex de Waal, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and author of 'Famine Crimes'
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Introduction: For Richer, for Poorer
Part I: Then
1. Return to Korem
2. The Famine Trail
3. Hunger as a Weapon
4. Rebels with a Cause
Part II: Transitions
5. Economic Warfare
6. How to Prevent a Famine
7. Population Matters
Part III: Now
8. 2005 and All That
9. Down with Democracy?
10. Free Association
11. Pastoral Affairs
Part IV: Prospects
12. Spoiling the Party
13. Enter the Dragon
14. Us and Them

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Peter Gill has specialised in developing world affairs for most of his career, an interest that began as a VSO teacher in Sudan and his first visit to Ethiopia in the 1960s. In the 1970s he was South Asia and Middle East Correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. For TV Eye and This Week, he made films in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, in Gaza and Lebanon, in South Africa under apartheid and in Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia during the famine years. He made Mr Famine for ITV about corruption at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and Clare's New World about Clare Short, DFID and its first White Paper Eliminating World Poverty. From 1999- 03, he headed the India office of the BBC World Service Trust. His first project partnered Indian broadcasters in leprosy campaigning that brought 200,000 patients forward for cure, this led to a £5 million project on HIV/Aids awareness. He has is author of Drops in the Ocean, A Year in the Death of Africa and Body Count.

Does Foreign Aid Really Work? - Roger C. Riddell
The White Man's Burden - Winthrop D. Jordan
The Bottom Billion - Paul Collier

Special Features

  • Tells the story of what's happened in Ethiopia over the 25 years since Live Aid.
  • Asks whether we did change the face of poverty, close the gap between rich and poor, and fulfil the promise of 'development.'
  • Written by the journalist who got to the centre of the famine before anyone else.
  • Includes media stories never told before including Jonathan Dimbleby's TV roles in famine coverage.
  • Features many exclusive interviews, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz on his rows with the IMF.