Late Victorian Holocausts

Late Victorian Holocausts:
El Niño Famines and
the Making of the Third World
AuthorMike Davis
LanguageEnglish
SubjectEnvironmental economics, economic history
PublisherVerso
Publication date
December 2000
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typeHardback & paperback
Pages464 pp (hardback edition)
ISBN1-85984-739-0 (Hardback), ISBN 1-85984-382-4 (Paperback)
363.8/09172/4 21
LC ClassHC79.F3 .D38 2001

Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World is a book by Mike Davis about the connection between political economy and global climate patterns, particularly the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism during the El Niño–Southern Oscillation related famines of 1876–1878, 1896–1897, and 1899–1902 across multiple continents. The book's main conclusion is that the deaths of 30–60 million people killed in famines all over the world during the later part of the 19th century were caused by the laissez-faire and Malthusian economic ideology of the colonial governments.

Davis characterizes the Indian famines which took place under colonial rule as a "genocide".[1] Some scholars, including Niall Ferguson, have disputed this judgment, while others, including Adam Jones, have affirmed it.[2][3]

  1. ^ Davis, M. (2001). Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World. London: Verso. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-85984-739-8.
  2. ^ Jones, Adam (2016). "Chapter 2: State and Empire". Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-317-53385-6.
  3. ^ Powell, Christopher (2011). Barbaric Civilization: A Critical Sociology of Genocide. McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP. pp. 238–245. ISBN 978-0-7735-8556-0.