The millions of deaths that occurred during China’s great famine of 1959-1961 represent one of the world’s greatest civil demographic disasters. Two primary hypotheses have been advanced to explain the famine. One is that China experienced three consecutive years of bad weather while the other is that national policies were wrong in that they reduced and misallocated agricultural production. Th...

Humanitarian professionals continue to seek best practice guidelines for famine relief. Many emergency interventions in developing countries draw on recent lessons from the 20 century, but attention has also been paid to historical experiences such as the 19 century evolution of India’s Famine Codes and responses to Ireland’s famine of the 1840s. This article goes further back in time to examin...

This article reviews the historical debate on colonial causation and dimensions of Great Irish Famine 1845-50. It does so by briefly reviewing evolution relationship between Britain Ireland before focusing a number specific fields relating to coloniality famine. These include economic structures dynamics developing over century 1845 vulnerability society, vector potato blight its impact food av...

Famine means destitution, increased severe malnutrition, disease, excess death and the breakdown of institutions social norms. Politically, it a failure governance – to provide most basic protections. Because both its human political meanings, ‘famine’ can be shocking term. This is turn makes analysis especially declaration famine very sensitive subject. paper synthesises findings from six case...