'A masterly account of climatic, economic and colonial history.' New Scientist 'Davis has given us a book of substantial contemporary relevance as well as great historical interest.' Amartya Sen As globalization continues, seemingly unchecked, and we pass silently through the centenary of the 1899-1902 famines in India, Davis presents a shocking indictment of the costs of imperialism and ignorance, arrogance and sloth. Late Victorian Holocausts is the first serious examination of El Nino's imprint on modern history.
In this his black book of liberal capitalism, Davis exposes the human costs of globalization arguing 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 and millions of peasants' lives. But the effects of draught were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by differing ruling elites, policies that in effect were crimes against humanity. All were affected by the same global climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all experienced brutal famines that decimated local populations. Late Victorian Holocausts, focuses on the three zones of draught and subsequent famine: India, Northern China, and Northeastern Brazil. 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 and to sow the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known as the Third World. Winner of the World History Association Book Award for 2002Įxamining a series of El Nino-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the nineteenth century. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
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. But the effects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China and Northeastern Brazil. Examining a series of El Nino-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the nineteenth-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.
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