Overview

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. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China, and Northeastern Brazil. All were affected by the same global climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all experienced brutal famines that decimated local populations. But the effects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. 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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9781541402911

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�Davis has given us a book of substantial contemporary relevance as well as great historical interest . . . this highly informative book goes well beyond its immediate focus.� ---New York Times

Author Information

Mike Davis is the author of several books, including City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Planet of Slums, and Magical Urbanism. He was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in Papa'aloa, Hawaii. James Patrick Cronin is an accomplished audiobook narrator with over 100 titles to his credit. A classically trained stage actor with an MFA from the University of Louisville, he has performed as an actor and a comedian on stages all over the world.

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