Late Victorian Holocausts cover art

Late Victorian Holocausts

El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World

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Late Victorian Holocausts

By: Mike Davis
Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
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About this listen

Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th 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.

©2017 Mike Davis (P)2017 Tantor 19th Century Environment Modern Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Politics & Government Science Social Sciences World Africa Latin American China Ancient History Imperialism Socialism Capitalism Natural Disaster Gilded Age Self-Determination Imperial Japan Taxation Middle Ages Colonial Period United Kingdom Social justice Tariff

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Most relevant
Everybody should read/ listen to this!
Important dive into how unfortunate climate events met with imperialism in the late 19th century created the 3rd world.
I personally sturggled with the narators cadance through the data towards the end and at times has to stop and listen to something else.

Harrowing and Enthralling

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Just a taste of how predatory capitalism can be a controllable part of a chain reaction that makes everything worse.

For everyone who thinks the European interventions in the colonies were a net positive this is a great start to educating yourself.

Sounds grim, worth the time

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