The Hungry Forties and the Great Famine, with their horrifying monikers, deserve a section just for the many voices engaged in political, humanitarian, and social venues in juxtaposition to the voices of the starving. This volume shows how rhetoric itself experiences a crisis of representation in the face of such dramatic, tragic events: how does a culture deal with its own chosen guilty and irrational psychological motives for casting a blind eye to famine within its own borders?

A revisionist account of the story of the foundations of public health in industrial revolution Britain.