Late Victorian Holocausts

"Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World" is a book by Mike Davis concerning the connection between global climate patterns and political economy, particularly the meteorological phenomenon called El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It describes the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism during the ENSO-related famines of 1876-1879, 1896-1897, and 1899-1902, in India, China, Brazil, Ethiopia, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and New Caledonia. It focuses on how colonialism and capitalism in British India and elsewhere increased rural poverty and hunger and how economic policies exacerbated famine.

In addition to a preface and a short section on definitions, the book is broken into four parts, 'The Great Drought, 1876-1878', 'El Niño and the New Imperialism, 1888-1902', 'Decyphering ENSO', and 'The Political Ecology of Famine'.

Between 30 and 60 million people were killed in famines all over the world that were caused by laissez faire and Malthusian economic ideology of the colonial government which refused to send food from areas with excess to the areas experiencing shortage. Previous to imperial rule, local governments in India had policies to transfer food from areas with excess to areas with shortage as an adaptation to the region's monsoon climate. So, the book's conclusion is that it was not the nature who caused these famines but the social and economical factors which are linked to European Imperialist expansion and the imposition of Liberal Capitalism everywhere in the late nineteen century.

The Great Drought, 1876-1878

1. Victoria's ghosts

In this section, Davis outlines the severity and effect of the famines in India, China, Brazil, and a number of other colonized nations during the El Niño-related famines of 1876-1879.

Here, Mike Davis continues to show us the severity of the Great Famine of 1876-78 which killed between 6.1 and 10.3 million people due mainly to viceroy Lytton's laissez-faire fundamentalism. In fact, men like the viceroys Lytton and Curzon show us that political dogmatism and ideological fanaticism can happen in all political/economic systems and Lytton's doctrinaire faith in capitalism leads India to one of the worst famines in its history.

2. The Poor Eat Their Homes

3. Gunboats and Messiahs

El Niño and the New Imperialism, 1888 to 1902

4. The Government of Hell

5. Skeletons at the Feast

In this chapter, Mike Davis tells us more about the terrible 1896-1902 famine, in which, according to the medical journal "The Lancet" around 19 million people died due mainly to British policies and the racist colonial ideology of the Viceroy Curzon, who inclusively installed politic censorship, broke the colonial parliament and allowed Lyttonian policies when confronted with this appalling famine and with criticisms to his rule. In fact, this kind of attitude shows us that the colonial government of British India was as tyrannic and despotic as any totalitarian regime in the XX century. The causes of these enormous famines are much better explained in the section "Political Ecology of Famine".

6. Millenarian Revolutions

Decyphering ENSO

7. The Mystery of the Monsoons

8. Climates of Hunger

The Political Ecology of Famine

9. The Origins of the Third World

In this chapter, the author explains about the true origins of the so-called "third world". Mike Davis tell us that extreme weather played a certain role, but the main cause of this was the colonial transformation and the integration of regions like Brazil, China and India in the world market which exposed the poor workers and natives to famine and disease in a scale unthinkable some decades before. The conclusion is that it was not weather that changed because in the eighteen century, for example, in China and India occurred a strong El-Nino occurrence with the intensity of those of the late nineteen century but, contrary to this time, there was no mass famine or disease as in the late nineteen century. So, the answer to what really caused the Great Victorian Famines, to what really killed as many people as the Second World War, can only be found in the social transformation of the means of production in the colonial European Empires, closely associated with the theological application of the principles of Smith, Bentham and Mill by the British Viceroys and colonial admnistrators everywhere.

10. India: The Modernization of the Poverty

11. China: Mandates Revoked

12. Brasil: Race and Capital in the Nordeste

Matthew White of the online [http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century] has said "If true, this accusation could easily create a moral equivalence between these famines and the devastating Communist famines of the 20th Century". [ [http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century] [http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wars19c.htm Statistics of Wars, Oppressions and Atrocities of the Nineteenth Century] Last Updated Jan 2004]