The Famine in Perspective

Abstract

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, large-scale famines took place in Asia and Latin America as well as in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. On very rough estimates, in the second half of the nineteenth century, 12–29 million people died in major famines in India, and between 20 and 30 million in China.1 In the twentieth century, India and China again suffered from major famines. The loss of life in the Chinese famine of 1958–61 was larger than in any other twentieth-century famine. In both India and China, the very low level of grain or rice output per head of population, and the small number of livestock providing meat and dairy produce, placed their populations permanently on the edge of famine. The lack of livestock in India and China meant that there were no ready reserves to fall back on in times of shortage.