
The Politics of Famine in European History and Memory
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 15. May 2025
Book
Hardback
218 pages
978-1-032-73757-7 (ISBN)
Description
This is the first book to bring together groundbreaking scholarship focusing on the various ways in which famines result from political decision-making, and how the threat, occurrence, relief, or memory of famine is instrumentalized as a political and military tool.
Contributions to this volume reveal the complexities, variations, and motivations behind the instrumentalization of famine by political actors and regimes, and how the politics of perpetrating hunger and the politics of relieving it have often been intertwined. They also address how famine legacies have been subsequently politicized in public debates, educational practices, and popular media; and how these socially and politically constructed memories and myths, in turn, have shaped broader narratives about hunger and humanitarianism both in history and today.
The Politics of Famine in European History and Memory provides a crucial resource for scholars and students from all disciplines interested in the study of famines, as well as those interested in the history of war and troubled pasts more generally.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Contributions to this volume reveal the complexities, variations, and motivations behind the instrumentalization of famine by political actors and regimes, and how the politics of perpetrating hunger and the politics of relieving it have often been intertwined. They also address how famine legacies have been subsequently politicized in public debates, educational practices, and popular media; and how these socially and politically constructed memories and myths, in turn, have shaped broader narratives about hunger and humanitarianism both in history and today.
The Politics of Famine in European History and Memory provides a crucial resource for scholars and students from all disciplines interested in the study of famines, as well as those interested in the history of war and troubled pasts more generally.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Postgraduate
Illustrations
9 s/w Abbildungen, 8 s/w Photographien bzw. Rasterbilder, 1 s/w Zeichnung, 5 s/w Tabellen
5 Tables, black and white; 1 Line drawings, black and white; 8 Halftones, black and white; 9 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 250 mm
Width: 175 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
587 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-73757-7 (9781032737577)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Ingrid de Zwarte | Miguel Angel del Arco Blanco
The Politics of Famine in European History and Memory
E-Book
05/2025
1st Edition
Routledge
€0.00
Available for download

Ingrid de Zwarte | Miguel Angel del Arco Blanco
The Politics of Famine in European History and Memory
E-Book
05/2025
1st Edition
Routledge
€0.00
Available for download
Persons
Ingrid de Zwarte is Assistant Professor of Economic and Environmental History at Wageningen University. Her research focuses on the central role of food and famine in modern warfare. She is the author of The Hunger Winter: Fighting Famine in the Occupied Netherlands, 1944--45 (Cambridge UP, 2020).
Miguel Angel del Arco Blanco is Full Professor in the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Granada. His work focuses on the study of fascism, memory, the Spanish Civil War, and post-war Francoism. Currently, he is working on a book about the Spanish Famine.
Miguel Angel del Arco Blanco is Full Professor in the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Granada. His work focuses on the study of fascism, memory, the Spanish Civil War, and post-war Francoism. Currently, he is working on a book about the Spanish Famine.
Editor
Wageningen University, The Netherlands
University of Granada, Spain
Content
Introduction: The Politics of Famine Part 1: State Policies and Responses 1. The Autarkic Policy: The Origin of the Spanish Famine, 1939-42, 1946 2. War, Occupation and the Politics of Causing and Fighting Hunger in World War II 3. Food Crises, Extreme Hunger and Famine in Russia and the USSR 4. Centre-Periphery Relations in the Soviet Post-War Famine of 1946-47 Part 2 : The International Politics of Famine and Relief 5. The Allied Blockade and British Politics of Food and Famine During World War II 6. Humanitarian Action: A Moral Economic Periodization of Famine Relief 7. Fight the Famine: American Quakers and Child Feeding in Germany After the First World War Part 3: Politization of Famine Legacies 8. Famine, Trauma and Memory. Commemorating the Great Irish Famine in the 1990s 9. "I Haven't Eaten So Well for So Long!": Representations of the Allied Blockade of Germany in German Textbooks and Film, 1914-32 10. Heritages of Hunger in Europe: Transnational Matter for the Present Day. Afterword: Famines and Power, Past and Present