Review Of The Book "Late Victorian Holocausts" By Mike Davis

In the Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis enlightened us with an enormous amount of information about famines, and droughts during the early 1800s into late 1800s. Mike showed us the lack of help from government toward different counties and the different things that individuals did during this time to not only help themselves but to also help their families. The countries that were affected by these droughts and famines were Africa, China, Brazil, India, Egypt, and Korea. Mike told us about the human suffering caused by these droughts, famines, and extreme climate conditions. The death amounts with China, and India was unbelievable (numbers between 12 million Chinese and over 6 million Indians).

Before reading this book, I didn’t know what to expect, I thought this book would’ve just given us information about the Holocausts that wasn’t taught to us in school. But while reading this book there was so many things that stood out in my eyes and had me look at life on a whole other level. Firstly, chapter two “The Poor Eat Their Homes” very sad and definitely made me think. This was considered to be the worst Global recession. In this chapter Davis showed us how people had to give up their homes in order to survive and also the reaction of the colonial government. Britain’s free market economic decisions at this point was being labeled as a “mask of colonial genocide”. Individuals would sell valuable things in their home with the expectation that in return they would’ve gotten food, water, and necessary things to keep them alive. After giving up all that was left in their possession, individuals started to turn to family members. They began feasting on eat others body as if it was food because nothing else was there to eat. Husbands would eat their wife, wife would eat their children, after a while order didn’t matter it was a matter of survival (kids at some point became first option to other). It was reported that “more than 100, 000 dependents were sold into servitude to contractors from the south. Later the government nullified all forced sales of women and children during this time of famine” page 68. This sentence stood out to me because not only was family doing this because they had no choice, but now the government would have started to sell people to contractors for their own selfish purpose. I never knew that famine, and drought could cause people to turn into complete monsters but of course not by choice. Just simply trying to survive. Now that I better understand the extremity of this situation, it makes me wonder if this kind of event should take place now how would government do things differently. Would it be the same struggle for family that can’t afford proper survival items, and how would they help everyone.

“Emergency camp conditions during these famines and droughts were so terrible that few people would’ve preferred to go to jail”. Would this be the same of individuals in today’s society? This reminds me of “Prostitution” that is very much going in today’s society. It may not be visible to everyone, but I’ve seen it for myself within my own neighborhood. As Davis said this is a way of trying to survive and making sure that their family have all the necessary things to stay alive.

Chapter Five “Skeletons at The Feast” El Niño and the New Imperialism, 1888 to 1902. This section deals with the impact of the colonial famine policy and its effects on the colonial subjects. Again, looking at the title of this chapter I knew to expect anything and everything because it enough. Davis told us about the high prices, while drought was turning into famine. On page 146, figure 5. 2 “The prosperous appearance of the country…” Famine victims at Jubbulpur at the time of Lord Elgin’s visit 1897. This picture shows us the levels of starvation, lack of help, and just not having anything to help one’s self or family members. Also, on this same page there were a few sentences that stood out to me was as follows “`The drought here had been unbroken since the fall of 1895 and the monthly death rate had been over 10 percent since September. The government had previously refused desperate local appeals to open…grain”. Not only did the government not want to open up railroad to help transport necessary items, but they refused to help the control of prices on grain. When prices on grains become high not everyone can afford it, which then mean they’ll eventually go bad. With this happening it definitely showed us how selfish government was towards helping to family that were in desperate need of help. As a result, individuals just started dying a lot more rapidly than anything else. These kinds of activity remind me of situations while growing up within the Caribbean. In the Caribbean you find that there are times when family can’t afford nothing. Lucky in Caribbean island you will find that some families have their own farm. Crop would do well and in return they would sell to others in return for cash. Just as Davis described, government wouldn’t do much to help or if they did it would be to the individual than can actually afford to help themselves. It’s like everyone believed in free trade but wasn’t willing to do anything to help. Especially as it relates to huge hikes in supply and demand “modernization”.

Lastly chapter 3 “Gunboats and Messiahs”, this chapter focus more on colonizing countries, and topic of taxation, and the emphasis of transactional aid. In this chapter, Davis takes us down the lane of better understanding of colonizing power within countries such as Japan occupying Korea, France occupying Egypt, along with Dutch over Vietnam. Taxation was such a big deal that it influenced the local government and creating a society that would heavily depend on colonizing power. One quote that stood out to me in this chapter was “either to collect more getah perea to sell one’s labor to the Dutch” which associated more with Dutch. Making taxes such a big part of society Dutch might have thought it would’ve helped them in areas where they needed the most. But little did they know that it would’ve harm them in the worst way possible. Not only did they have higher tax rates that people couldn’t afford but this put them in a space to owe other countries. Circumstances such as this created a cycle of natural poverty. Later this helped to export resources for the economic benefit further establish the debt of other countries. I want to say that with this system it created a lot of racism and economic profit.

In conclusion, we see that starvation and famine could indeed be prevented through counteracting economic and social policies. It will only take years of preserving and saving good and grains for desperate times. A drought may destroy crops, but it also damages people’s income by slashing agricultural employment and wages. It can or will destroy market for the modest goods and services where most individuals earn their living. Drought and floods has always had an effect on the direct impact on food supply.