JB Shreve
JB Shreve is the author of "How the World Ends: Understanding the Growing Chaos." He has been the host of the End of History podcast since 2012. He has degrees in International Relations and Middle East Studies. His other books include the Intelligence Brief Series. Regular posts and updates from JB Shreve are available at www.theendofhistory.net
In our last post in this series, we looked at how benevolent aid became dysfunctional politics and began reshaping the global food system in the 1960s and 70s. Two significant factors contributed solutions to the crisis as well the perpetuation of the dysfunctional global food system. The first was...
By 1956, food aid accounted for half of all US economic aid throughout the world. From the 1950s onward, food became a central piece of American aid throughout the world and a foundational element in the evolving US-dominated global economy. By 1960, one-third of the world’s trade in wheat...
The end of World War II resulted in the near total destruction of Europe’s powerful nations and the global complex of colonialism they erected over the course of the prior century. It was only a few years into the postwar period when Great Britain withdrew from almost all of...
Human civilization’s relationship to food supply has always been a relatively tense one. A delicate balance between food supply and growing population demand marks much of our history. The oldest recorded human history captures the disruptive nature of famines in dictating the development and movement of human population centers....
While famine rages in one part of the world, in other parts obesity is climbing to record rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued reports in 2016 detailing how the US obesity epidemic was getting worse, not better, in spite of numerous awareness and prevention efforts. In...
In early 2017, the Secretary General of the United Nations warned that 20 million people were at risk of famine, including 1.4 million children at imminent risk of death (37). In Yemen alone at that time, 7 million people were on the brink of starvation while two-thirds of the population...
The outbreak of violence this week has brought the world to the brink of a Sudan civil war. Such a conflict poses a risk for a wider regional war in Africa.
Deadly fighting broke out in Sudan over the weekend. Various media outlets report nearly 200 dead and more...
This is part two of this article discussing the coming economic meltdown. You can find part 1 here.
Crazy Stupid Ideas That Lead to the Coming Economic Meltdown
The father of capitalism, Adam Smith, wrote about the invisible hand of the marketplace. The invisible hand worked to incentivize individuals and businesses to...
This is part one of two articles discussing the next economic meltdown. You can find part 2 here.
At the end of last week, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) became the second-largest bank failure in US history, with more than $200 billion in assets. Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, said...
Israel is facing an unprecedented level of crisis both internally and externally. A rise in violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinians has become the worst flare up of violence in more than 20 years leading many to believe the conflict is on the verge of a third intifada. Simultaneously,...