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Famines are becoming smaller and rarer, but optimism about the possibility of a famine-free future must be tempered by the threat of global warming. That is just one of the arguments that Cormac Ó Gráda, one of the world's leading authorities on the history and economics of famine, develops in this wide-ranging book, which provides crucial new perspectives on key questions raised by famines around the globe between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries.
The book begins with a taboo topic. Ó Gráda argues that cannibalism, while by no means a universal feature of famines and never responsible for more than a tiny proportion of famine deaths, has probably been more common during very severe famines than previously thought. The book goes on to offer new interpretations of two of the twentieth century's most notorious and controversial famines, the Great Bengal Famine and the Chinese Great Leap Forward Famine. Ó Gráda questions the standard view of the Bengal Famine as a perfect example of market failure, arguing instead that the primary cause was the unwillingness of colonial rulers to divert food from their war effort. The book also addresses the role played by traders and speculators during famines more generally, invoking evidence from famines in France, Ireland, Finland, Malawi, Niger, and Somalia since the 1600s, and overturning Adam Smith's claim that government attempts to solve food shortages always cause famines.
Thought-provoking and important, this is essential reading for historians, economists, demographers, and anyone else who is interested in the history and possible future of famine.
E-Book Content
Eating People Is Wrong
Eating People
Is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, Its Past, and Its Future Cormac Ó Gráda
Princet on Universit y Press Princet on and Oxfor d
Copyright © 2015 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Jacket image © Anna Jurkovska/Shutterstock, jacket design by Leslie Flis All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ó Gráda, Cormac. Eating people is wrong, and other essays on famine, its past, and its future / Cormac Ó Gráda. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-691-16535-6 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Famines—History. I. Title. HC79.F3O567 2015 363.809—dc23
2014037905
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Sabon Next Pro with Adobe Garamond display Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Do Dhiarmuid, do Mháire, agus d’Fhionn
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Eating People Is Wrong: Famine’s Darkest Secret? 2 “Sufficiency and Sufficiency and Sufficiency”:
11
Revisiting the Great Bengal Famine of 1943–44 38
3 Markets and Famines: Pre-industrial Europe and Beyond 92
4 Great Leap into Great Famine 130 5 Famine Is Not the Problem—For Now Bibliography 209 Index 231
174
Eating People Is Wrong
Introduction No two famines are the same, yet, superficially at least, most have a lot in common. The usual symptoms might include high food prices beyond the reach of the poor; increases in evictions, and in crime and antisocial behavior; vagrancy and migration in search of employment and charity; rising unemployment; hunger-induced reductions in the birth and marriage rates; protests and resistance that give way to apathy and hopelessness as the crisis worsens; early philanthropic efforts that, in the more protracted crises, give way to donor fatigue; fear