Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World

Rating:
Summary: Harrowing History
Review: An astonishing book, _Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World_ (Verso) by Mike Davis is a huge collection of data about the extremes of climate in the final quarter of the nineteenth century and the human suffering they caused. Drought and monsoons hit India, China, southern Africa, Brazil, and Egypt, and millions died under the most hellish conditions. About a third of this big book is devoted to descriptions of what the populace in various areas went through. The pictures of suffering due to "malign interaction between climatic and economic processes" are harrowing. This part of the book is not for you if you object to hearing about bodies by the roads as prey to the dogs, dogs as prey for the remaining humans, survivors fighting over corpses for food, parents eating their children and vice versa, and parents swapping children so that they might not cannibalize within the family. A more complete nightmare is not to be imagined. In the El Niño events of the years around 1877 and 1898, something like fifty million people starved in China, India, and Brazil alone, and the horror stories are the same in all the locales.

It was the weather, of course, and no one can do anything about the weather. Crop failures due to water shortage are just part of our agricultural lot. And yet, the chief culprit in all those millions of deaths, Davis demonstrates, was not the amoral weather, but the immoral means used to cope with it. In almost all the areas hit with starvation, there were grain surpluses in other parts of the country or the empire which could have rescued the drought victims.

It was during this period that by instantaneous international communication, people began to realize that drought in one area often accompanied drought in other areas. Synchronous drought results from huge shifts in seasonal locations of the chief tropical weather systems. Davis gives a history of our better understanding, with the key breakthrough coming only in the late 1960s, of what came to be known as ENSO, the El Niño - Southern Oscillation. Using the global insights, Davis demonstrates the linkages between the fates of sharecroppers in Brazil, cotton growers in India, and peasants in China.

This ambitious and well-documented work is an indictment of the capitalism of the time. It is compelling reading, for all the ugliness of the episodes described. It cannot provide specific plans for the inevitable famines to come via ENSO or other forces, but it compels us to admit that if starvation happens, we must not blame the weather, but rather ourselves.

Rating:
Summary: Book of the decade
Review: An extraordinary exercise in erudition. The breadth of Davis's scholarship to put this picture together is amazing. From his synthesis of meteorological science, historical geography and history over five continents Davis prosecutes the case of mass murder against the British ruling class. The callousness of the British rulers of India, (& the racism which underpinned it) extracting their surplus to keep themselves supreme in world finance which sentenced 10s of millions to death from famine and its aftermath are horrifying. British rule in India and the great powers' intervention in China, Davis argues are the origins of third world underdevelopment and mass poverty.
Davis's account is overwhelmingly convincing but the real sting is the similarity of the behaviour he depicts to the ruthlessness of the G8 and their determination to impose their "free trade" on the rest of the world through the WTO. Today's great powers care no more about mass starvation, death from disease and institutionalised poverty resulting from their detemrination to dominate world trade than the Bristish in India. And they will raise the same arguments about the poor's lack of initiative and self reliance and the demoralising effect of welfare as the British in India. Read this book and know how the future will unfold if we do not resist it.

Rating:
Summary: The Supposed Political Economy of Famine
Review: Davis has created a book of monumental proportions, but in doing so he has put too much into the mix and tried to leaven it to one thing -- economic imperialism causes famine.

The sheer horror he describes is enough to make one shed tears in the opening chapters. The hardship of the Indian peasants and their harsh colonial overseers is shocking to imagine -- even by the standards of the mid 1800s.

The central events Davis analyses are the major famines in India, China and Brazil in the 19th Century. With a major digression on the historicism of climatology and the advent of our understanding of major El Nino and Nina climatological events, Davis concludes that Environment exacerbated the climate, but that want was induced by the colonial systems, not climate by itself. Colonialism induced the following:

1)widespread elimination of traditional modes of production. More village based and parochial gave way to more industrial, wage labour modes of production.
2) a profound belief in Adam Smithian Economics and JSMill's notion of non-interventionism, which resulted in benign neglect or actions that actually exacerbated the famine.
3) capitalism means that famine is actually not the lack of food. But the lack of the means of trade, the means of production to produce something in exchange for food.

Ergo Capitalism in general and Imperialism in particular cause Famine.

Davis has an excellent climatological history segment in the middle of the book. I really do not see how it is at all relevant to the above thesis. Besides being an interesting dialogue, if capitalism causes famine then why include a long climatoligical history at all.

For Davis, as with all Marxists (and all idealogues for that matter, whether left or right) there is no room here in the explanation of actions for the role of human decision making. Humans only act in the way that economic forces shape them. It is of course the old charge against Marxism, of determinism writ large, and Davis suffers from this very much. Thus the Queen's Minister's in India, are responsible for the suffering (plausible), and her ministers make decisions purely out of economic motives. Even when they are moved to pity, economics overrides it and brings them back to being automotons driven by economics -- forced to do evil and strip the last amount of surplus value out of the Indian "riots" -- peasants. Thus all colonial officials and their local lackies are inescapable robots.

The corrollary is of course that the local, traditional means of production were superior (the noble savage theory once again), but they were displaced by the newer modes of production, eg. Davis continually cites the fact the train lines and their spurs concentrated grain stores in single huge areas and did not distribute it as widely as the traditional Indian & Chinese methods. It is an interesting theory, but I do not know how he would prove it since his book includes no description of famines in pre-colonial times for any of the countries.

Davis mentions briefly the famines in China in the 1950s / 60s directly instigated by the communist party. Yet, in true ideological style --- throw out common sense and flow with the dogma --- he makes the asinine statement that Mao's policies were driven with good intent, but he lacked a feedback mechanism to know what was actually going on --- millions died, but Mao's heart was in the right place. This, in Davis' opinion, actively contrasts with the attitude of the British who actually engage in active efforts to make the famine worse.

The above is plain idiocy, intellectually dishonest: contrasting the "Great Leap Forward Famine" with that of the British India Famines of 1877 and 1900, Mao created the famine and then mismanaged it. Even by Davis' own analysis, the British did not start such a famine.

Also it is worthwile to note that in 400 pages of contrasting famines Davis does not once -- not once! --- mention the Stalinist famine in 1930s Soviet Union (where as many as 20,000,000 may have died). Such an oversight is done consciously and reminds me that Davis has put together a monumental book with a lot of original work, yet in final analysis it is a heavy ideological tract worthy of Lenin himself. Davis has his truth. It is that capitalism causes famines.

I would caution Mike Davis to merely remember a simple fact. Both capitalists & Communists cause famine. The task is for the individual to respond morally in such times --- to say that actions are only dominated by economic theory is plainly wrong and not worthy of the observations of a well-read historian, which Mike Davis obviously is...







Rating:
Summary: Read this Book, Then...
Review: FIGHT FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Professor Ignacio Chapela courageously spoke out
against the UC $25 million research agreement with
the biotechnology giant Novartis. He published an
article demonstrating that native corn in Mexico had
been contaminated by genetically engineered corn.
Being a prominent critic of the university's ties to
the biotech industry, Dr. Chapela had his tenure
denied despite overwhelming support by his peers at UC
Berkeley and experts around the world.

The implications that these actions have on academic
freedom are frightening. They threaten scientists in
the future from working to seek truth in different
forums without undue influence. Scientists will no
longer be able to ask questions that might seem
uncomfortable even for the university to pose, such as
those in pursuit of precautionary science or in
opposition to corporate control over the university
research agenda.

You can get involved:
1. Call, email or write the UC Berkeley Chancellor
Birgeneau and the Academic Senate.
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Snail Mail: Office of the Chancellor, 200 California
Hall # 1500, Berkeley, California, 94720-1500
(Academic Senate = PHONE: [phone]; FAX:
510-642-8920; E-MAIL: [e-mail]

2. Visit www.tenurejustice.org or write
[e-mail]




Rating:
Summary: The statistics of misery
Review: From the substantive topics of LATE VICTORIAN HOLOCAUSTS, namely El Nino induced droughts and famines that brought on agricultural collapse and socioeconomic disintegration in the tropics, there can be no doubting that the real subject of this book is misery. It's presented here in such a well reasoned, thought provoking, and professional way that we don't notice how deeply we've dived into the miasma before we are too far gone and by then we can't put the book down.

To put misery into context consider that between 1876 and 1900 there were a series of El Nino events that Mr Davis estimates caused between 32 to 61 million deaths in China, India and Brazil. It was not all climatalogical (i.e floods and droughts), but also diseases such as malaria, smallpox, dysentry, and cholera. Mr Davis, in building the theoretical underpinnings for his book posits two explanations:

(1) These societies had pre-existing agricultural and social systems that were capable of ameliorating the effects of the natural disasters. To the extent that the systems were now failing in the late Victorian era, Mr Davis traces this to the policies adopted by the governments of imperial China, colonial India, and Brazil. In short the trade, finance and economic practices of Europe, Britain and America, had, - long before it became a buzz-word - effectively achieved globalization.

(2) This is not to say that Third World poverty is solely a result of imperialism. It is not, and that isn't Mr Davis' argument. It is instead, he says, an issue of "political ecology." This concept as developed by Mr Davis interestingly shows how individual actions are ultimately the principal causes but also how intricately they are linked to geopolitical factors.

In summary Mr Davis seems to be saying that neither the market (or the lack thereof), nor government influence, are solely sufficient in explaining the Third World. Political ecology offers a holistic approach and sees the individual as responsible, but with a nod to the influence of geopolitics. The political element of the equation is all the more important when you realize that in the the Third World, poor also means, poor in power.

Rating:
Summary: Relentlessly one-dimensional polemic
Review: I've read and enjoyed Mike Davis' work before, but with this I'd lost sympathy way before the end. This is not to deny his main
thesis, which is hardly new or even particularly controversial - that what we currently refer to as third world countries were
systematically under-developed at the expense of their colonial masters. This after all is still happening, and is what the whole
globalisation controversy is about. Davis concentrates on the the massive famines at the end of the nineteenth century in India
China and Brazil, and argues that they were a result of El Nino conditions. Well, actually he doesn't, because he goes to great
lengths, in good Marxist tradition, to set up a definition of a famine as a political event - ie they're always someone's fault. So in the case of India the late nineteenth century famines were the fault of the British administration. Well....certainly the attitude of the British, of complacency mixed with racism and backed by a laissez-faire ideology which believed it best not to interfere in these situations - a complex of attitudes seen fifty years earlier in the Irish famine - exacerbated the situation. But the same catastrophe, with comparable death tolls, hit China as well. Ah, but the Opium Wars, you know.....China had already been affected by the deadly virus of Western capitalism, so even if China wasn't a colony, it was still all the fault of the British. And Brazil? More catastrophe, more megadeaths. No problem - Brazil was already part of the London-based capitalist system. Enough said.

So as we turn to the 20th century we should see these trends continue? Well, bit of a problem there actually: two of the greatest 20th century famines were unconnected to El Nino, and were in Russia/Ukraine in the thirties, and China during the Great Leap Forward at the start of the sixties. Davis mentions the latter: "the scale of this holocaust is stupefying, and for many sympathisers with the Chinese revolution, inexplicable". He doesn't declare himself to be such a sympathiser - it would have been more honest for him to do so - but quite clearly he is. He sneers at Jasper Becker's "Hungry Ghosts" on this episode as a "Robert Conquest-like expose". Ah yes, Robert Conquest - isn't he the guy who insisted that the actual victims of Stalinist excesses, in the famines and the gulags, was much higher than previously thought? And is it not now generally accepted that he was, um, right? So the nineteenth century famines were the result of the inexorable logic of imperialism, while the thirties famine in Russia goes unmentioned and the famine in Maoist China is perhaps down to Mao's personal inflexibility. The problem, declares Davis, was the lack of socialist democracy. Good old socialist democracy, eh.....as practiced where, exactly?

OK, it's his book, he can write a polemic if he wants, but as a reader I can then decide if I think that someone is so ideologically driven as to be an unreliable guide. I have no problem with criticism of British or any other Western imperialism, but the sheer relentless one-sidedness of it for me in the end proved counter-productive.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent survey of climate and empire
Review: In this extraordinary book, Davis studies the effects of the 1876-79, 1889-91 and 1896-1902 famines on the southern hemisphere, particularly India, China and Brazil. He estimates that the famines killed perhaps 50 million people in Asia alone. The causes were disruptions - El Ninos - of the global climatic system, which have occurred throughout history. The trend is towards more frequent and more destructive events.

Responding to famines in pre-British India, its Moghul rulers embargoed food exports, regulated prices, distributed food for free, and relaxed tax collection. Similarly in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Chinese state managed effective famine relief and flood control systems. But the British state's occupation of India and its Opium and Arrow wars against China destroyed all these systems.

Britain's rulers took advantage of the disasters to fasten their grip even more tightly on both their formal and informal empires. They used the Indian Famine Fund to pay for their imperial wars. During the famines, they allowed merchants to export grain reserves, ended free food distribution, and maintained, or even increased, tax collection.

Viceroy Curzon said, "any Government which by indiscriminate alms-giving weakened the fibre and demoralised the self-reliance of the population, would be guilty of a public crime." The 1901 Famine Commission Report ludicrously said, "the relief distributed was excessive." The Irish called it 'famine political economy'. But there was no such parsimony in raising a War Fund for the attack on the Boers, nor in the millions spent on Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee ceremonies.

From 1757 to 1947, India's per capita income failed to improve. In the last half of the 19th century, India's income fell by 50%; life expectancy fell by 20% between 1872 and 1921; the population hardly grew. There were 17 serious famines in the 2000 years before British rule, but 31 in the 120 years of British rule. Empire, not Asia's 'immemorial' traditions, or overpopulation, kept India poor. Today, different imperial powers, the USA and the EU, seek to take advantage of the disasters that recent El Ninos have caused.

Rating:
Summary: El Nino and Imperialism: A Tragic Combination
Review: Late Victorian Holocausts is a double investigation, first of the role played by ENSO, the El Nino Southern Oscillation which affects much of the world's weather in the devastating famines which marked the late nineteenth century, and secondly of the role European (primarily British) imperialism took in deepening those famines. Thus part of the book is a scientific study of ENSO, while the rest is a chronicle of the horrendous suffering in India, China, and Brazil. Even if you are familiar with the typical nineteenth century European Social Darwinist free trader ideology, the callousness of the attitudes of British viceroys and plentipotentiaries towards the suffering Indian and Chinese peasants is breathtaking. Similarly, the arrogant disregard of the sufferings of the Brazilians by their government is beyond belief.

In contrast with the insouciance of the Europeans when faced with disaster, Davis provides some fascinating information proving that earlier famines in India and China before imperialism weakened their societies were dealt with swiftly and humanely, with a fine regard for easing suffering and preserving human life.

The most important message of this book is that much of today's Third World is the direct result of natural disaster augmented by human indifference.

Rating:
Summary: For the record
Review: Marxists are routinely (and not surprisingly) confronted with the effects of their acts and theories. Yet the market system is never confronted with the facts of the case, nor are these allowed to impinge with any critique of ideology. Anyone with reveries intact here should read this book, a very well done account of the interaction of global climate (the El Nino phenomenon in action, by hypothesis), colonialism, and imperialism. A sort of Black Book of capitalism. Add fifty million to King Leopold's ten and we are not far short of the Bolshevik world record. The vignettes and detail here are excellent, a gripping tour into archival amnesia.

Rating:
Summary: appalling numbers
Review: Mike Davis gives us a brilliantly researched history of El Nino and La Nina droughts which set the stage for some of the worst famines in human history. The weather set the stage, but we humans turned bad situations into horrible famines. All it took was a little doctrinaire Adam Smith. "Famine has never arisen from any other cause but the violence of government attempting, by improper means, to remedy the inconvenience of dearth." (Quoted page 31.)

Mr. Davis reports that, prior to Europe assuming the White Man's Burden, the Chinese, Indians and others peoples handled drought fine. Assuming available transportation, these pagan, medieval and incompetent governments sent food from people which had an excess to people who had none. The drought continued until the rains came, but this little common sense kindness avoided massive starvation.

Europeans knew better. In some cases, feeding starving people became a crime. Millions upon millions starved to death while those who ruled them, enslaved by their ideology of free markets, complained about their charges' mental and physical inferiority. And watched them die.

Mike Davis' point is that climate and environment matter. They matter a lot. The final outcome, however, depends on us.

So tell me again: what's this global warming thing about?