Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World Hardcover - 2001

Media reviews

“Davis has given us a book of substantial contemporary relevance as well as great historical interest.”—Amartya Sen

“A masterly account of climatic, economic and colonial history.”—New Scientist

“A hero of the Left, Davis is part polemicist, part historian, and all Marxist.”—Dale Peck, Village Voice

“Davis, a brilliant maverick scholar, sets the triumph of the late-nineteenth-century Western imperialism in the context of the catastrophic El Nino weather patterns at that time ... This is groundbreaking, mind-stretching stuff.”—The Independent

“Wide ranging and compelling ... a remarkable achievement.”—Times Literary Supplement

“Generations of historians largely ignored the implications [of the great famines of the late nineteenth century] and until recently dismissed them as ‘climatic accidents’ ... Late Victorian Holocausts proves them wrong.”—LA Times Best Books of 2001

“Devastating.”—The San Francisco Chronicle

“The global climate meets a globalizing political economy, the fundamentals of one clashing with the fundamentalisms of the other. Mike Davis tells the story with zest, anger, and insight.”—Stephen J. Pyne, author of World Fire

“Davis’s range is stunning ... . He combines political economy, meteorology, and ecology with vivid narratives to create a book that is both a gripping read and a major conceptual achievement. Lots of us talk about writing ‘world history’ and ‘inter-disciplinary history’: here is the genuine article.”—Kenneth Pomeranz, author of The Great Divergence