["The Geography of Hunger": from regional logic to universality]

The Geography of Hunger, now the target of reflective reading 50 years after it was first published, shows the author' elegant combination of argumentative skill and scientific confidence. Josué de Castro's provocative focus is both a new way of thinking and acting towards the food and nutritional situation in Brazil and a pioneering approach to the issue of collective hunger as a geographically universal phenomenon. Based on regional specificities, the book admits that partial contributions may help establish a characteristic map of the problem's universal nature, thus helping build a different image of Brazil and the world and opening up the possibility of constructing a universal plan to combat hunger and new perspectives for those seeking to correct regional differences and overcome underdevelopment. In this book, which is also a manifesto, Josué de Castro reinterprets the role of classical geography, taking into account one of the most important explanatory dimensions, i.e., political analysis, to unveil the significance and consequences of uneven spatial development. The concepts and proposals raised by The Geography of Hunger are alive and provide essential tools for critically rethinking Brazilian reality, particularly that of the Northeast. On its fiftieth anniversary, The Geography of Hunger is more current than ever because of stimulating and disturbing message.