Leathers and Foster (emeritus, both agricultural and resource economics, U. of Maryland-College Park) incorporate recent statistics into their account, but also consider the dramatic rise in the price of food over the first half of 2008, and its place in the longer history of hunger in the poor parts of the world and efforts to alleviate that hunger. They set out the facts about malnutrition, explore its causes, and describe policy approaches for dealing with it. Among their specific topics are measuring undernutrition, income distribution and other factors influencing the demand for food, agricultural production and the environment, policies that raise the incomes of the poor, and policies that raise prices paid to farmers through direct subsidies and the elimination of urban bias. No dates are noted for earlier editions. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)