Late Victorian Holocausts:
El Niño Famines and
the Making of the Third World
AuthorMike Davis
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SubjectEnvironmental economics, economic history
PublisherVerso
Publication date
December 2000
Media typeHardback & paperback
Pages464 pp (hardback edition)
ISBN1-85984-739-0 (Hardback), ISBN 1-85984-382-4 (Paperback)
363.8/09172/4 21
LC ClassHC79.F3 .D38 2001

Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World is a book by Mike Davis about the connection between political economy and global climate patterns, particularly the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism during the El Niño–Southern Oscillation related famines of 1876–1878, 1896–1897, and 1899–1902 across multiple continents. The book's main conclusion is that the deaths of 30–60 million people killed in famines all over the world during the later part of the 19th century were caused by the laissez-faire and Malthusian economic ideology of the colonial governments.

A controversial book,[1] it has received both praise and criticism. Praise generally focused on Davis' analysis of the Third World[2] and its origins,[3] while, conversely, his assertion the Indian famines which took place under colonial rule were intentionally engineered by the British has been criticized as extreme[4] and conspiracist.[5]

Overview

Victims of the Great Indian Famine of 1876–1878

This book explores the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism during the El Niño–Southern Oscillation related famines of 1876–1878, 1896–1897, and 1899–1902, in India, China, Brazil, Ethiopia, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and New Caledonia. I El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). By comparing ENSO episodes in different time periods and across countries, Davis explores the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism, and the relation with famine in particular. Davis argues that

Millions died, not outside the 'modern world system', but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures. They died in the golden age of Liberal Capitalism; indeed, many were murdered ... by the theological application of the sacred principles of Smith, Bentham and Mill.[6]

The book won the World History Association Book Prize in 2002.[7] It focuses on how colonialism and capitalism in Colonial India and elsewhere increased rural poverty and hunger while economic policies exacerbated famine. The book's main conclusion is that the deaths of 30–60 million people killed in famines all over the world during the later part of the 19th century were caused by laissez-faire and Malthusian economic ideology of the colonial governments. In addition to a preface and a short section on definitions, the book is broken into four parts: The Great Drought, 1876–1878; El Niño and the New Imperialism, 1888–1902; Decyphering ENSO; and The Political Ecology of Famine.[8]

Davis explicitly places his historical reconstruction of these catastrophes in the tradition inaugurated by Rosa Luxemburg in The Accumulation of Capital, where she sought to expose the dependence of the economic mechanisms of capitalist expansion on the infliction of 'permanent violence' on the South.[9]

Davis argues, for example, that "Between 1875–1900—a period that included the worst famines in Indian history—annual grain exports increased from 3 to 10 million tons", equivalent to the annual nutrition of 25m people. "Indeed, by the turn of the century, India was supplying nearly a fifth of Britain's wheat consumption at the cost of its own food security."[10] In addition,

Already saddled with a huge public debt that included reimbursing the stockholders of the East India Company and paying the costs of the 1857 revolt, India also had to finance British military supremacy in Asia. In addition to incessant proxy warfare with Russia on the Afghan frontier, the subcontinent's masses also subsidized such far-flung adventures of the Indian Army as the occupation of Egypt, the invasion of Ethiopia, and the conquest of the Sudan. As a result, military expenditures never comprised less than 25 percent (34 percent including police) of India's annual budget ...[11]

As an example of the effects of both this and of the restructuring of the local economy to suit imperial needs (in Victorian Berar, the acreage of cotton doubled 1875–1900),[12] Davis notes that "During the famine of 1899–1900, when 143,000 Beraris died directly from starvation, the province exported not only thousands of bales of cotton but an incredible 747,000 bushels of grain."[13]

Publication history

This book was first published in Illustrated Hardcover edition in December 2000. It was later issued in paperback format in May 2002.[14] An extract was published in Antipode in 2000.[15]

Reception

This book won the World History Association Book Prize in 2002.[7] It was also featured in the Los Angeles Times Best Books of 2001 list.[16]

In his book Apocalypse Then, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, while generally approving the historical presentation of facts, argued that Davis' conclusions were overly reductive. In response to Davis' approval of Karl Polanyi's hypothesis that "Indian masses in the second half of the 19th century ... perished in large numbers because the Indian village community had been demolished", Sen retorts that "this is an enormous exaggeration. In exploding one myth, we have to be careful not to fall for another"; however,

it is an illustrative book of the disastrous consequences of fierce economic inequality combined with a drastic imbalance of political voice and power. The late-Victorian tragedies exemplify a wider problem of human insecurity and vulnerability ultimately related to economic disparity and political disempowerment. The relevance of this highly informative book goes well beyond its immediate historical focus.[17]

Reviews

See also

References

  1. ↑ Maxwell, Kenneth (2002). "El Nino in History: Storming Through the Ages; Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino, Famines, and the Making of the Third World". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  2. ↑ Leitch, Richard (2008). "Book Review: Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World By Mike Davis. New York: Verso, 2001. 470 pp. $20.00 paper". Review of Radical Political Economics. 40 (3): 384–387. doi:10.1177/0486613408319853. ISSN 0486-6134. S2CID 154514190.
  3. ↑ Magdoff, Fred (2005). "Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World. By Mike Davis 2001. Verso, London and New York. US$27, ISBN 1-85984-739-0, cloth". Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. 20 (3): 190–192. doi:10.1079/RAF2005109. ISSN 1742-1713. S2CID 154616192.
  4. ↑ Studer, Roman (2015). The Great Divergence Reconsidered: Europe, India, and the Rise to Global Economic Power. Cambridge University Press. p. 158. ISBN 978-1-316-23976-6.
  5. ↑ Smil, Vaclav (2001). "The Shadow of Droughts' Deaths: Late Victorian Holocausts El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World by Mike Davis. Verso, London, 2001. 474 pp. $27, C$38, £20. ISBN 1-85984-739-0. (Book Review)". Science. 292 (5517): 644–645. doi:10.1126/science.1060130. ISSN 0036-8075. JSTOR 3083525. S2CID 152563001.
  6. ↑ Davis, M. (2001). Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World. London: Verso. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-85984-739-8.
  7. 1 2 The World History Association Bentley Book Prize Winners Archived 11 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ Davis, M. (2001). Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World. London: Verso. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-85984-739-8.
  9. ↑ Callinicos, Alex (2002). "The Actuality of Imperialism". Millennium – Journal of International Studies. 31 (2): 319–326 See p. 321. doi:10.1177/03058298020310020601. S2CID 144874823.
  10. ↑ Davis 2000, p. 59
  11. ↑ Davis 2000, pp. 60–61
  12. ↑ Davis 2000, p. 65
  13. ↑ Davis 2000, p. 66
  14. ↑ Verso Books Publication Page Archived 15 October 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ↑ Davis, M. (2000). "The Origin of the Third World". Antipode. 32 (1): 48–89. doi:10.1111/1467-8330.00119.
  16. ↑ Fagan, Brian (2 December 2001). "Late Victorian Holocausts". Nonfiction: The Best Books of 2001. Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 22 February 2015.
  17. ↑ Sen, Amartya (18 February 2001). "Apocalypse Then". Books. The New York Times.
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