Late Victorian holocausts : El Niño famines and the making of the third world

Examining a series of El Nino-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. This 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. In the last quarter of the Victorian era, epic drought repeatedly devastated agriculture throughout the tropics as well as in northern China. More than fifty million poor rural people perished in ensuing famines and epidemics. Once-verdant countrysides were turned into howling deserts, and mortality in some parts of Ethiopia, China and Brazil was comparable to the effect of a nuclear holocaust. Although this was the greatest human tragedy since the Black Death, its global history -- and lasting impacts on world economic development -- are now analysed for the first time.

Mike Davis recounts the gripping scientific detective story -- the hundred-year quest for the "mystery of the monsoons" -- that has led contemporary researchers to find the fingerprints of "El Nino/Southern Oscillation" all over the catastrophic crop failures of the 1870s and 1890s. Yet nature alone is rarely so deadly. El Nino's murderous accomplices, as Davis shows in meticulous case-studies, were the Gold Standard and the New Imperialism. The lineaments of a future "third world" -- the irreparable division of humanity into haves and have-nots -- was decisively shaped by fatal interactions between world climate and world economy that occurred in the twilight of the nineteenth century.

Winner of the World History Association Book Award Blending global environmental history with political history, this bestselling book explores “late-nineteenth-century Western imperialism in the context of catastrophic El Niño weather patterns at that time” (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. Examining aseries of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawnedaround the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davisdiscloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arroganceand natural incident that combined to produce some of the worsttragedies 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 sameglobal climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and allexperienced brutal famines that decimated local populations. But theeffects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularlydestructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. Davisargues that the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known asthe Third World were sown in this era of High Imperialism, as the pricefor capitalist modernization was paid in the currency of millions ofpeasants' lives. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World "Here's the northeast monsoon at last," said Hon. Robert Ellis, C.B., junior member of the Governor's Council, Madras, as a heavy shower of rain fell at Coonoor, on a day towards the end of October 1876, when the members of the Madras Government were returning from their summer sojourn on the hills. Examining a series of droughts and the famines that they spawned in the last third of the 19th century, this text analyses this human tragedy. It covers its global history and lasting impacts on world economic development