Book Reviews 187 © 2019 East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies (ewjus.com) ISSN 2292-7956 Volume VI, No. 1 (2019) DOI: https://doi.org/10.21226/ewjus485 Andrea Graziosi and Frank E. Sysyn, editors. Communism and Hunger: The Ukrainian, Chinese, Kazakh, and Soviet Famines in Comparative Perspective. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies P, 2016. Conference papers first published in East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, guest editors, Andrea Graziosi and Frank E. Sysyn, editor-in-chief, Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj, vol. 3, no. 2, 2016, pp. 3-165. viii, 158 pp. Maps. Tables. Graphs. Selected Bibliography of Socialist Famines in the Twentieth Century. $24.95, paper. n the recent monograph Communism and Hunger: The Ukrainian, Chinese, Kazakh, and Soviet Famines in Comparative Perspective , editors Andrea Graziosi and Frank E. Sysyn bring together a collection of essays that reflect critically and comparatively on elements of famine in Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan, and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. The book includes a short preface (vii-viii) and an introduction (1-6), both written by Graziosi and Sysyn. The bulk of the edited collection is made up of six essays, written by Nicolas Werth, Sarah Cameron, Zhou Xun, Lucien Bianco, Graziosi, and Niccolò Pianciola, respectively. The first three essays focus on individual states and republics, including the USSR, Kazakhstan, and China. The last three essays present comparative approaches that analyze the similarities and differences between famine policies implemented by Mao Zedong and by Joseph Stalin. The essays in this book were originally presented as papers at the Communism and Hunger Conference in Toronto, Ontario, in 2014. In the introduction, Graziosi and Sysyn briefly lay out their reasons for examining famines in the context of Communism. They note, “In fact, with the exception of the 1943 Bengal famine with its approximately two million victims, all of the other major famines of the twentieth century are directly connected to socialist ‘experiments’ . . .” (1). The policies of the Great Turning Point (GTP) in 1929 and the Great Leap Forward (GLF) in 1958 act as focal points for the authors as they attempt to piece together the links between industrialization, modernization, and hunger. Particular emphasis is placed on the evolving relationship between the countryside and the city. In both the Chinese and the Soviet cases, rapid collectivization of rural areas was instigated to help feed expanding cities, and the goal that Mao and Stalin both had was to make the countryside pay for the transformation of their respective countries. Although central planning linked the policies of China and the Soviet Union, there were major differences in policy implementation and outcomes. Stalin targeted certain ethnic groups, particularly Ukrainians, and “consolidated his grip on the Party” (4) while Mao was eventually forced to admit responsibility for the disaster in China and faced weakening support. The essays that follow in the book, together, provide context for I