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Famine: A Short History ハードカバー – 2009/3/16
Famine remains one of the worst calamities that can befall a society. Mass starvation--whether it is inflicted by drought or engineered by misguided or genocidal economic policies--devastates families, weakens the social fabric, and undermines political stability. Cormac Ó Gráda, the acclaimed author who chronicled the tragic Irish famine in books likeBlack '47 and Beyond, here traces the complete history of famine from the earliest records to today.
Combining powerful storytelling with the latest evidence from economics and history, Ó Gráda explores the causes and profound consequences of famine over the past five millennia, from ancient Egypt to the killing fields of 1970s Cambodia, from the Great Famine of fourteenth-century Europe to the famine in Niger in 2005. He enriches our understanding of the most crucial and far-reaching aspects of famine, including the roles that population pressure, public policy, and human agency play in causing famine; how food markets can mitigate famine or make it worse; famine's long-term demographic consequences; and the successes and failures of globalized disaster relief. Ó Gráda demonstrates the central role famine has played in the economic and political histories of places as different as Ukraine under Stalin, 1940s Bengal, and Mao's China. And he examines the prospects of a world free of famine.
This is the most comprehensive history of famine available, and is required reading for anyone concerned with issues of economic development and world poverty.
- 本の長さ327ページ
- 言語英語
- 出版社Princeton Univ Pr
- 発売日2009/3/16
- 寸法14.61 x 3.18 x 22.23 cm
- ISBN-100691122377
- ISBN-13978-0691122373
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- 出版社 : Princeton Univ Pr (2009/3/16)
- 発売日 : 2009/3/16
- 言語 : 英語
- ハードカバー : 327ページ
- ISBN-10 : 0691122377
- ISBN-13 : 978-0691122373
- 寸法 : 14.61 x 3.18 x 22.23 cm
- カスタマーレビュー:
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This book is a timely reminder that famine still stalks the world, although not on the scale of the Chinese famine of 1959-61, or the Bengal famine of 1942-44, which killed tens of millions. Even Europe experienced famines in Holland and Greece during World War 2. Most people, however probably associate famine with Africa, which O Grada nominates as the last region of endemic famine in the world..
Famines are intensely political events. Governments often have a vested interest in down-playing the number of deaths, while opponents at home and abroad often exaggerate them. Deaths claimed in the great Chinese famine of 1959-61 range from zero (the government denied any famine existed and covered up its impact) to 50 million. Credible estimates range from 15 - 25 million.
Famine has also become "feminised." It is often claimed that more women than men die in famines. O Grada discusses compelling data from many famines that show quite the reverse - more men die than women. As one investigator put it "husbands will very generally rather starve than see their wives starve before them." He goes on to discuss the physiological evidence that helps explain the higher famine mortality of men.
It is also widely believed that famine kills predominantly the very young and the elderly. However, a carefully study of the actual data does not justify such an over-generalisation to include every famine.
During the 1959-61Chinese famine, the greatest recorded in history, it is said that starving children gathered at the Yunjing bus station hoping to eat the vomit off the long-distance buses.
In almost all famines crime rose substantially in the desperate struggle for food. People became hardened by their own needs. There is a photo in the book of a man stealing food from a starving child on the ground. In extremis, infanticide and enslavement were practiced.
In the 19th century Malthusian ideas of famine dominated official responses. Famine was simply nature's way (or even God's way) of "checking" population when it had run ahead of the food supply. But towards the end of the19th century famine relief became institutionalised and this trend has continued to the present day.
Now there is a vast array of NGOs involved in famine relief. This has not always been a positive development. Many NGOs have become expensive, self-serving bureaucracies in their own right. They often exaggerate and have used famines as a pretext for soliciting additional aid. O Grada gives numerous examples (with references) in the book.
Modern government food aid is of such a scale that it is often dumping by another name. While it might relieve the poor in the short run, it risks damaging local agriculture and perversely increasing the chances of future famines and undesirable dependence on food handouts.
I have travelled in the poorer regions of Africa and all this resonated with me. Many of the vehicles in such places are dirty and dilapidated. But occasionally one sees a shiny white Toyota Landcruiser flashing by, windows up, aircon full on. Invariably these vehicles belong to some UN or other NGO, cocooning a cosseted official rushing off to some meeting or other.
While great loss of life and human suffering are the obvious characteristics of famine, other inevitable characteristics include crime, corruption and profiteering by officials and privileged classes. O Grada gives many examples, including one that will surprise many readers. A missionary in China used famine relief funds to build a cottage for himself, and was supported by his fellow missionaries when the scandal came to light.
O Grada, one of the world's leading famine analysts, makes the startling claim that "over the past century or so, almost without exception, famines in peacetime have been exacerbated by corrupt and rapacious governing elites." Famine has also been used as an instrument of war.
Apart from some brief remarks in Chapter 1, not enough is said about the role of climate in certain famines. I would have liked to have seen a chapter on this topic. The book focuses on famine itself - how famine develops, its effects and efforts to deal with it.
This book is probably the best popular treatment of the subject available. O Grada writes well and has a gift for the telling example, although parts of the book may be too dry and analytical for some readers.
Most of its conclusions are unremarkable; but some are counter-intuitive and demonstrate the value of letting the data speak truthfully to a skilled researcher like O Grada.
I urge all thoughtful readers to read this book.
The author dolls out a lot of blame to states, social elites, markets, and NGO's for their role in causing or worsening famines. He also analyzes how famine relief has worked in the real world and what NGO's, states and markets can do. I wish the author covered even more things like the US dustbowl, which is something I think he would have done really well given what a great perspectives he offered on famines in Africa, Ireland, and China. The book is only about 280 pages, not including the endnotes.
I did catch a typo though on page 96-97
"a range from 9.5 to thirteen million-during the Great Northern China Famine of 1987-78. That estimate refers to a time when the population of China was little more than one-half of its 1958 level".
Generally speaking people don't date things backwards, time doesn't go from "1987-1978". It seems clear he was actually referring to the Famine of 1877-1879, as the population of China exploded after 1950 and while food security wasn't perfect there were no famines in China during either the 1970's or 1980's.