Advertisement

Famine and Disease

Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Palgrave Studies in Economic History book series (PEHS)

Abstract

The infrequency of severe mortality crises and the low prevalence of famine and disease are characteristics of modern industrial and post-industrial societies. Understanding the processes leading to their decline, and the associated improvements in living standards and life expectancy, is a precondition for knowing what is needed to prevent their re-emergence. This chapter provides a historical perspective on famine and disease to help overcome the lack of knowledge on these rare events.

JEL Classification

I14 I15 I18 N30 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Reading List

  1. Alfani, G. 2013. Calamities and the Economy in Renaissance Italy. The Grand Tour of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
  2. Alfani, G., and F. Ammannati. 2017. Long-Term Trends in Economic Inequality: The Case of the Florentine State, 1300–1800. Economic History Review 70 (4): 1072–1102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Alfani, Guido, and Marco Percoco. 2016. Plague and Long-Term Development: The Lasting Effects of the 1629–30 Epidemic on the Italian Cities. EHES Working Paper Series, Paper No. 106.Google Scholar
  4. Alfani, G., and T.E. Murphy. 2017. Plague and Lethal Epidemics in the Pre-industrial World. Journal of Economic History 77 (1): 314–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Alfani, G., and C. Ó Gráda. 2017. Famine in European History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. ———. 2018. The Timing and Causes of Famines in Europe. Nature Sustainability 1: 283–288.Google Scholar
  7. Alfani, G., and M. Percoco. 2018. Plague and Long-term Development: The Lasting Effects of the 1629–1630 Epidemic on the Italian Cities. Economic History Review, forthcoming.Google Scholar
  8. Álvarez Nogal, C., and L. Prados de la Escosura. 2013. The Rise and Fall of Spain (1270–1850). Economic History Review 66 (1): 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Borsch, S.J. 2015. Plague, Depopulation and Irrigation Decay in Medieval Egypt. In Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World. Rethinking the Black Death, ed. M.H. Green, 125–156. Kalamazoo and Bradford: ARC-Humanities Press.Google Scholar
  10. Campbell, B.M.S. 2010. Nature as Historical Protagonist: Environment and Society in Pre-industrial England. Economic History Review 63: 281–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Clark, G. 2007. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  12. Cummins, N., M. Kelly, and C. Ó Gráda. 2016. Living Standards and Plague in London, 1560–1665. Economic History Review 69 (1): 3–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Curran, D., L. Luciuk, and A.D. Newby, eds. 2015. Famines in European Economic History. The Last Great European Famines Reconsidered. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  14. Davenport, R. 2011. Annual Deaths by Cause, Age and Sex in England and Wales, 1848–1900. [data collection]. 2nd Edition. UK Data Service. SN: 5705, http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-5705-1Google Scholar
  15. Diamond, J. 1997. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
  16. Dickson, D. 1997. Arctic Ireland: The Extraordinary Story of the Great Frost and Forgotten Famine of 1740–41. Belfast: White Row Press.Google Scholar
  17. Domar, E.D. 1970. The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis. Journal of Economic History 30 (1): 18–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Dyer, C. 1998. Rural Europe. In The New Cambridge Medieval History—Volume VII, c. 1415–1500, ed. C. Allmand, 106–120. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  19. FAO. 2017. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017. Building Resilience for Peace and Food Security. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.Google Scholar
  20. Fernihough, A., and C. Ó Gráda. 2018. Poverty and Population in Pre-famine Ireland. Queen’s University Centre for Economic History Working Paper.Google Scholar
  21. Fogel, R.W. 2004. The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Herlihy, D.J. 1997. The Black Death and the Transformation of the West. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  23. Johnson, N.P., and J. Mueller. 2002. Updating the Accounts: Global mortality of the 1918–1920 “Spanish” Influenza Pandemic. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 76 (1): 105–115.Google Scholar
  24. Jordan, W.C. 1996. The Great Famine. Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  25. Luterbacher, J., and C. Pfister. 2015. The Year without a Summer. Nature Geoscience 8: 246–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Malthus, T.R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population, as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society. London: Johnson.Google Scholar
  27. Mokyr, J. 1983. Why Ireland Starved: An Analytical and Quantitative History of the Irish Economy, 1800–1850. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
  28. Ó Gráda, C. 2009. Famine: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  29. ———. 2015. Eating People is Wrong and Other Essays on the History and Future of Famine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  30. ———. 2016. Cast Back into the Dark Ages of Medicine? The Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance. American Journal of Medical Research 3 (1): 142–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. Pamuk, Ş. 2007. The Black Death and the Origins of the ‘Great Divergence’ across Europe, 1300–1600. European Review of Economic History 11: 289–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Post, J.D. 1985. Food Shortage, Climatic Variability, and Epidemic Disease in Preindustrial Europe: The Mortality Peak in the Early 1740s. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
  33. Sen, A. 1981. Poverty and Famine: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
  34. Slavin, P. 2014. Warfare and Ecological Destruction in Early Fourteenth-Century British Isles. Environmental History 19: 528–550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. Smith, A. [1776] 1976. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  36. Voitgtländer, N., and H.-J. Voth. 2012. Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany. Quarterly Journal of Economics 127 (3): 1339–1392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Ziegler, M. 2015. The Black Death and the Future of the Plague. In Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World. Rethinking the Black Death, ed. M.H. Green, 125–156. Kalamazoo and Bradford: ARC-Humanities Press.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Bocconi UniversityMilanItaly
  2. 2.University College DublinDublinIreland

Personalised recommendations

Cite chapter

Buy options