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Aren't like 4/5 of china's famines in the modern era? They certainly happened before but became much more prevalent after it was connected to the emerging globa
by giraffe_lady 4y ago
Aren't like 4/5 of china's famines in the modern era? They certainly happened before but became much more prevalent after it was connected to the emerging global market system. A trend repeated in many other places.
Food output decreases for many reasons, but famine is a political problem. During most of the worst famines in china, as elsewhere, starving regions were still exporting grain.
- emodendroket 4y agoDepends how you want to define "modern" I guess; I wouldn't count anything before the Communists took power but that still leaves the big one ending in 1962.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoI had in mind "late modern period" as frequently used by historians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_modern_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_modern_period And for china specifically (and also very much india) I would definitely include the 19th century victorian famines. They were driven by distinctly "modern" forces like global grain market prices, and bureaucratic/political prioritization of exports over sustaining the local population. Pre-modern famines were usually more directly caused by regional failure to react to specific climate events and crop failures. Or, traditionally, just local military aristocrats hoarding the grain.
- emodendroket 4y agoI was thinking more about how completely its governance had taken the form of a modern state, which I'd say was an incomplete process even in the Nationalist period.