Climate and famines
A Historical Reassessment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5795205 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Philip Slavin (0000-0002-6460-145X, University of Kent, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 433-447 |
| Publication date | 2016-04-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1757-7780 • E-ISSN: 1757-7799 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/wcc.395 |
| OpenAlex | W2346258556 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 19 |
| References cited | 80 |
This study, dealing with the question of the impact of climate and extreme weather events on famines, has two objectives. The first objective is to review recent literature on the topic, distinguishing between economic and political science papers aimed at addressing contemporary famine events in the Third World countries, and historical research dealing with famines of the past. The former category of literature is characterized by a tendency to take the connection between the two variables for granted. The latter category, however, tends to exercise more analytical caution, but it still exhibits a degree of environmental determinism. The second objective of the article is to reassess the role and impact of climate and short-term weather anomalies on famines in pre-Industrial societies, in both European and non-European history. At first, it appears that famines went invariably hand-in-hand with climatic changes and anomalies. A closer analysis, however, reveals that those climatic events created environmental shocks (harvest failures and blights), which implied shortages, rather than famines. Whether those shortages were bound to transform into full-fledged famines was determined by nonenvironmental factors: primarily, human institutions and demographic trends. Climate alone, it is argued, is incapable of creating famines. The often unquestioned connection between the two variables appears to be an imaginary cultural and political construct of our era, when the fear of global warming and the awareness of climate change dominate the public and scholarly discourse. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:433-447. doi: 10.1002/wcc.395 This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > World Historical Perspectives
Economic shortage · Famine · Climate Change and Health Impacts · Hydrology and Drought Analysis · Tree-ring climate responses
History meets palaeoscience
Do spatial spillovers in food insecurity exist within a country? An analysis of droughts, conflicts, and livelihoods in Somalia
Relationship between Famine and Climatic Disasters in China during the Qing Dynasty
Toward a complex socio‐environmental understanding of drought
Realizing Consilience in Studies of Pre-Instrumental Climate and Pre-Laboratory Disease
Mysterious and Mortiferous Clouds
The Social Burden of Resilience
Climate and society in long‐term perspective
Evaluating the relationships between climate change, population pressure, economic intensification, and childhood stress in the Prehispanic Nasca region of Peru
History and the Social Sciences
From paleoclimate variables to prehistoric agriculture
New perspectives on historical climatology
The “cultural turn” of climate history
Climate and Society in Chinese History
Climate change and society in the 15th to 18th centuries
Famines in medieval and early modern Europe—Connecting climate and society
Climate and society in European history
Linking European building activity with plague history
Income inequality and famine mortality
Before the Black Death
The Great Transition
The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
Global Crisis
Grain Markets in Europe, 1500–1900
The Great Famine
Assessing the vulnerability of food crop systems in Africa to climate change
Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events; Implications for Food Production, Plant Diseases, and Pests
Global climate change, war, and population decline in recent human history
Timing and climate forcing of volcanic eruptions for the past 2,500 years
Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility
Farmers׳ perception of drought impacts, local adaptation and administrative mitigation measures in Maharashtra State, India
Was there a ?medieval warm period?, and if so, where and when?
Famine crimes
Volcanoes and the Climate Forcing of Carolingian Europe, A.D. 750-950
The Great Irish Famine
Poverty and Famines
Russia's First Civil War
The European Crisis of the 1590s
Climate, population and famine in Northern Italy
Climate Change in Southern and Eastern Africa During the Past Millennium and its Implications for Societal Development
Warfare and Ecological Destruction in Early Fourteenth-Century British Isles
Famine in Bengal
Greenland (Gisp2) ice core and historical indicators of complex North Atlantic climate changes during the fourteenth century
Climate change and social vulnerability
Vulnerability to hunger in Africa
Climate change and agricultural trade
Climate change and food security
Implications of policies to prevent climate change for future food security
Climate change and world food supply, demand and trade
Risk Factors and Predictability of Famine in Ethiopia
Multiple threats to regional food production
The Malawi Famine of 2002
Climate Change and Food Security
How Warm Was the Medieval Warm Period
The Fear of an Apocalyptic Year 1000
British economic growth, 1270–1870
Historic Storms of the North Sea, British Isles and North-West Europe
Nature as historical protagonist
The Famine of the 1590s in Northern Italy. An Analysis of the Greatest “System Shock” of Sixteenth Century
Sen's Entitlement Approach
Reducing the Future to Climate
The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933
Harvest Shortfalls, Grain Prices, and Famines in Preindustrial England
The Great Bovine Pestilence and its economic and environmental consequences in England and Wales, 1318-501
Ireland Before and After the Famine
Market Failure during The Great Famine in England and Wales (1315-1317)
Climate and Economy in Eighteenth-Century Switzerland
Climate Change during and after the Roman Empire
Famine as agricultural catastrophe
The sixteenth-century price rise
Famine Intensity and Magnitude Scales
| Unique citing works | 19 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,9 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 19 |