Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third WorldThis global environmental and political history “will redefine the way we think about the European colonial project” (Observer). “ . . . sets the triumph of the late 19th-century Western imperialism in the context of catastrophic El Niño weather patterns at that time . . . groundbreaking, mind-stretching.” —The Independent Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China; and Northeastern Brazil. All were affected by the same global climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all experienced brutal famines that decimated local populations. But the effects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. Davis argues that the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known as the Third World were sown in this era of High Imperialism, as the price for capitalist modernization was paid in the currency of millions of peasants’ lives. |
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Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World Mike Davis Limited preview - 2001 |
Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World Mike Davis Limited preview - 2002 |
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Africa agrarian agricultural Asia Asian Beijing Berar Bombay Boxer Brazil British Cambridge Canal capital cattle Ceará Central Provinces Chinese Climate colonial cotton crisis crop cultivation Cunniff cycle death Deccan decline Delhi Digby disaster districts drought drought-famine economic El Niño ENSO epidemic Ethiopia European export Famine in India farmers flood global grain granaries Gujarat harvest Hebei Henan History hunger Ibid impact imperial increased India Indian Famine irrigation La Niña labor land late London Lytton Madras meanwhile million missionary modern monsoon Moreover mortality Niña nineteenth century Niño events Nordeste north China north China plain northern Ocean officials opium Pacific peasantry peasants percent poor population production Qing quoted rainfall rains region reported revenue rice rural season sertão Shandong Shanxi social South Southern Oscillation starvation starving subsistence Taiping teleconnection tion trade tropical variability Victorian villages warm weather western wheat Yangzi Yellow River دو