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Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World | 
 enlarge | Author: Mike Davis
Publisher: Verso
Category: Book
List Price: $20.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 34685
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 470
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.8 x 1.4
ISBN: 1859843824
Dewey Decimal Number: 909
EAN: 9781859843826
ASIN: 1859843824
Publication Date: July 2002
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Book Description
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. 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Really interesting and surprising April 20, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
As a resident of Australia and self-taught climate scientist, I am all too well aware of El Nino and La Nina - though its influence pales in comparison with the manner by which enhanced greenhouse gases have destroyed southern Australia's winter rainfall since 1997. (The fact that agriculture never developed in Australia before the Industrial Revolution, however, reflects more on its extraordinarily ancient and low-phosphorus soils than El Nino influence).
In "Late Victorian Holocausts", Mike Davis does an exceptionally original study of the impact during the nineteenth century of El Nino and La Nina upon more fertile regions of the world, including India, China, Brazil and East Africa. His focus is on three major waves of "drought famine" (i.e. drought followed directly by famine) that occurred between 1876 and 1902 in many regions of the world. Davis' description and picture of the famines are incredibly graphic, even gruesomely horrific: we frequently see pictures of people starved to the extent that their skeletons are easily visible. His descriptions of forest fires in Asia and Amazonia during earlier El Ninos are similarly explicit and it is a pity that no pictures from 1877/1878 or 1925/1926 were available to him.
Davis does a very impressive job of explaining how El Nino and La Nina work and why they cause major changes in rainfall across the globe through shifting the location of what he calls, quite figuratively, "planetary heat engines". His diagrams and descriptions of the magnitude of rainfall changes in some of the areas worst affected by famines during the late nineteenth century are done exceptionally well. Davis explains that droughts in North China, northwestern and central India and the Brazilian sertao are related to El Nino preventing the intertropical convergence zone moving as far poleward as it normally does. He also explains the origin of ENSO theory in the early meteorological work of Gilbert Walker, whose name I am extremely familiar with from studying Australia's climate.
What is surprising even to someone familiar with Trotskyist theory is how Davis suggests that these famines, which allowed Europe to gain in population compared to China and India for a long period centred around the Victorian age, and that in fact before European colonisation periodic droughts never led to the level of mortality experienced during the late nineteenth-century famines in which in many places death rates rose to several hundred per thousand per year. He shows that the Qing dynasty had an elaborate system of what we in Australia call "drought subsidies" to protect North China against a very erratic climate, and that the increasing power of the West destroyed the effectiveness of this system and led to catastrophes during powerful El Nino (e.g. 1877) and La Nina (e.g. 1898) phases. In the process, he explains some relatively little-known facts about the social structure of Qing China.
Linking these together in Davis' hypothesis that ENSO-related disasters were an important and overlooked factor in the hegemony of the West that evolved during the late nineteenth century. A large number of interesting movements that aimed to maintain local power in Africa, Asia and the Pacific collapsed under the sheer weight of pressure and by the beginning of the twentieth century. Many of these remind me of religious movements I have read via such authors as Susan Starr Sered and Bill Kauffmann and would certainly be worthy of more detailed study than Davis can give them. However, his ability to show that living standards in the West were actually lower than those in Asia until well into the eighteenth century is most surprising, though as a student of cultural studies I am extremely loathe to measure a society's health by its wealth and living standards and believe other more psychological factors are crucial. Davis shows skilfully that the areas most affected by the late nineteenth century famines were actually once quite rich and that the influence of rich British businessmen was what impoverished these regions through forced devaluation of their commodities.
Some have said "Late Victorian Holocausts" is too influenced by Marxist doctrine and that Davis whitewashes the famines of the Great Leap Forward under Mao Zedong. It is true that he could have done a better job than he has about these famines, but though drought famines they were unrelated any ENSO influence as weather in the Pacific Dry Zone conclusively demonstrates. Davis also might have looked at Mao's regime from a Marxist perspective like Tony Cliff did, but the book's length makes this a minor quibble.
All in all, "Late Victorian Holocausts" is a most original and unique synthesis of history and climate that far surpasses anything by more famous authors like Tim Flannery. Its illustration of how climate combined with other social factors to produce catastrophes both social and economic is most refreshing and the excellent sourcing gives plenty of opportunity for further research.
Imperialism, famine and the weather March 11, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
It has been known since the 1920'ies that the surface temperatures of the Eastern Pacific influences the rainfall in many parts of the world.
In this book the author describes this phenomena and also tells the story of the important famines caused by these weather patterns. In addition it is described how the famines were made worse rather than better by English imperialist and the "free market". Railways were of no use here because the colonial administrators and the grain merchants saw no reason to have the grain transported to where it was needed the most. It is a good read though the meteorological parts are heavy going for a layman.
 Why so many are poor... August 27, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
One of the major perennial topics of research in the social sciences is "Why are some nations rich and others poor?" Tackled from the time of Plato onwards, many texts have been written on this subject, from many points of view. Like the other sciences, the huge advances in metrology, analytical techniques, and data collection, manipulation and visualization using computers in the 20th century has helped scientists connect dots that once were thought unlinked. And so answers to this question have become more comprehensive, more factual-based, and more pressing in the amount of evidence brought to bear. This book attempts to answer this question by examining the economic divergence of the world's major civilizations in the approximate period of 1860 - 1920 AD. The civilizations examined include Brazil, Indonesia, France, England, the USA, Philippines, India, China, Ethiopia, and Russia. Specifically, England, France and the USA underwent huge economic growth and subsequent improvements in the standard of living, while China, India and many other parts of the world descended into Third World status that have lasted until the late 20th century.
The author examines data for these countries such as suspot cycles, birth and death tolls, annual rainfall, sea temperatures, acres farmed and acres abandoned by farmers, and economic transaction data such as trade volume between specific agents (i.e. countries). Looking at all of this, the author puts forth the theory that abrupt weather patterns due to El Nino and La Nina occurrences in this time period substantially weakened the agricultural sectors of numerous countries. This occurred as technological progress in transportation and communication was creating the global economy with humans (slaves), clothing, precious metals, and food produce (crops) being the primary objects of trade. The weakened countries, nearly all of which were centralized monarchies, were colonized by the First World democracies. Within specific nations like the USA and Brazil, one region might rise in prominence vis-a-vis a decline in another region. The results included gradual but radical changes in power structures that lead to famines in times of poor agricultural output. The poor agricultural output was due to bad weather and the forced transitions to cash crops; the famines was caused by evil colonial policies. The final tragedy was tens of millions of dead peasants across the world in what is now known as the Third World.
Impressive Synthesis: 4.5 stars June 27, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
In 1887-1888, former President US Grant undertook a world tour. In stop after stop, Grant and his party witnessed scenes of famine and mass death. This was no coincidence, Nature and other scientific journals published accounts of approximately coincident famines circling the globe. Millions died. Remarkably, this global disaster was only one of three major world spanning famines in the final quarter of the 19th century, all with death tolls in the millions. The explanation for these events was not uncovered for decades. In the 1960s, Jacob Bjerknes of UCLA synthesized approximately a century of meterological and climatological data and speculation with his description of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as a major driver of world weather. All the great 19th century famines were driven by weather events resulting from unusually strong ENSOs.
Davis does a very nice job of describing the character and history of the discovery of the ENSO, the history of the devastating 19th century famines, and the evidence correlating ENSO changes with the famines. This is a model of integrating diverse scholarship to produce a synthesis with considerable explanatory power. These sections are very well written and leave the reader with powerful impressions of the world wide extent and severity of the famines.
Davis also makes a strong and largely successful effort at further elaboration and synthesis by integrating the social and economic history of the 19th century into his discussions of the great famines. Davis argues that the development of the world economy under European hegemony resulted in a series of changes in many regions that altered traditional societies in ways that made these societies more vulnerable to the effects of El Nino events. The increasing emphasis on cash crops for the world market, for example, eroded traditional subsistence farming that offered some safeguards against famine. Davis documents this feature best for the case of colonial India, where he can draw on a critical literature dating back to the 19th century and where successive British administrations behaved abysmally.
Davis also discusses several other societies impacted by the great famines, notably Qing China and Northeastern Brazil. Quite a few other regions are mentioned at least briefly. Davis has probably bitten off a bit too much in some of these sections. His effort to be comprehensive leads sometimes to superficial coverage.
Davis takes considerable pains to rebut the traditional argument that these famines were a Malthusian consequence of over-population. This is the complement to his argument that the 19th century European imperialism greatly exacerbated the consequences of El Nino events. In the case of India and some other regions, like the Phillipines and Dutch dominated Java, he makes a very good case. In the case of China, his argument is less powerful. By his own account, the horrible vulnerability of China, particularly North China, stems more from ecological consequences of population growth in the 18th and early 19th century plus the decay of the power of the Qing state. In all fairness to Davis, British imperialism did contribute to the decline of the Qing state.
Davis argues also with some force that the great famines contributed to the immiseration of China, India, and many other regions, contributing to the 20th century backwardness of the Third World. This is such an ambitious book that Davis is not always successful, especially in the second half fo the book, in presenting a complete story. Nonetheless, this is an unusually informative and even daring book.
Imperialism: the deadliest stage of capitalism May 26, 2007
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
Marx wrote about capital's destruction of the old social organizations of the societies it enters into, either originally or by force, that "the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire". Mike Davis demonstrates that this is, indeed, the case, and not just for Western Europe either. Focusing on the case examples of Brazil, India and China, Davis shows irrefutably how weather fluctuations, known as El Nino phenomena, combined with free traderism, colonialism and capitalist organization to create a series of harvest failures, famines, epidemics and regressions compared to which the Biblical plagues are child's play.
The first part of the book describes the various mass famines that occurred in northeastern Brazil, central and northern India, and central and northern China in the period of the apogee of colonialism, namely roughly 1870-1910. This matter is certainly not for the light of heart: the scale of the famines is such that they far exceed anything ever experienced under Mao or Stalin combined, and the indifference and repression of the the British and other colonialist elites in the face of so much suffering is staggering, evoking parallels with nazism. Of course Mike Davis' usual ill-chosen title attempts to make precisely this comparison, which rather weakens instead of reinforcing the effect of his book, but the facts speak for themselves regardless. Nothing can describe the effect it must have had on the Indian population to be forced to pay for British wars in Afghanistan and South Africa as well as a tremendously grand Jubilee for Queen Victoria, while in the meantime tens of millions of peasants were dying, in some district leading to reductions in population of almost two-thirds. Such is the effect of Whiggish history still that these facts are almost not known at all, and are never taught in high school history books. But everywhere capitalism goes, it leaves behind such corpses.
The second part of the book is a rather technical discussion of weather patterns, especially the oscillation known as ENSO, leading to the El Nino phenomena. Davis also delves into the scientific discussions of these phenomena both during the period of capitalist famines and in contemporary meteorology. This part of the book is furnished with strong statistical data, which will primarily be of interest to people engaged in studying weather patterns, as well as agriculturists because of the importance of these patterns for monsoons etc.
The third and final part of the book picks up where the first one left off, and goes into more detail about the social organizations of Brazil, India and China both before the colonialist period and during it. Davis produces interesting evidence to the account that not only was the average standard of living for the majority of the people quite higher in India and China than in Europe during the 18th Century, their degree of productivity in terms of manufacturing was higher as well. This to directly contradict the many Whiggish histories, like Landes and others, who posit the societies of India and China as stagnant and unproductive from the start. Instead, Mike Davis hypothesizes that the real reason for the sudden collapse in effectivity and productivity of India and China is the military involvement of (mainly) the British in these regions. Subjugating India entirely to a system of hyper-exploitation for the sole benefit of paying for the huge British military and for the interests of the factory manufacturers and traders in Manchester and London (whose direct influence over Indian Raj policy is shockingly large); and in China forcing the government into such large-scale wars and interventions against the British as to make the Qing dynasty go entirely bankrupt and unable to pay for the vast infrastructure and reserve funds, as well as destroying the most effective administation the world had ever seen, the Imperial magistrature system, from the inside via opium trade corruption. Davis makes plausible, if not quite proven, therefore that the downfall of India and China as powers in the 19th Century was exogenous rather than endogenous to these societies.
But what is most important about this book is the enormity of what it describes: the incredibly large-scale death of the subjugated and exploited peoples of what would later form the 'Third' or developing world. By even modest estimates the various preventable famines in China during 1850-1900 alone must have killed some 30-60 million people, and in India probably again anywhere between 30 and 85 million. Then if we add to that the deaths in Brazil (not exploited by foreign powers this time, but by their own capitalist plutocracy), of various African nations, as well as the costs of rebellion and civil war caused by the social disintegration resulting from invasion and colonialism, we get quite a pretty picture: indeed the 20th Century can hardly be considered bloodier than the 19th was. And this is called, by historians, the "Belle Epoque"! One wonders if those who write so-called "Black Books of Communism" etc. are even aware of the lethality of capital.
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