Famine Readings

• Conley, Bridget, Alex De Waal, Catriona Murdoch, and Wayne Jordash. Accountability for Mass Starvation: Testing the Limits of the Law (2022)

• Dannenbaum, Tom. "Siege Starvation: A War Crime of Societal Torture." University of Chicago Journal of International Law (2022)

• DeFalco, Randle. "Conceptualizing Famine as a Subject of International Criminal Justice: Towards a Modality-Based Approach." University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (2016)

• De Waal, Alex. "Engineers of Calamity: Famine Denial’s Past and resent, from Ukraine to Gaza." Boston Review (2024)

• Edkins, Jenny. "The Criminalization of Mass Starvations: From Natural Disaster to Crime against Humanity." In The New Famines: Why Famines Persist in an Era of Globalization (2007)

• Howe, Paul. "Chapter 15: Priority Regimes and Famine." In The New Famines: Why Famines Persist in an Era of Globalization (2007)

• Jordash, Wayne, Catriona Murdoch, and Joe Holmes. "Strategies for Prosecuting Mass Starvation." Journal of International Criminal Justice (2019)

• Jordash, Wayne, Catriona Murdoch, and Joe Holmes. "A Comprehensive Review of Existing IHL and ICL as It Relates to Starvation." In Accountability for Mass Starvation: Testing the Limits of the Law (2022)

• Kearney, Diana. "Food Deprivations as Crimes against Humanity." New York University Journal of  International Law & Politics (2013)

• Marcus, David. "Famine Crimes in International Law." American Journal of International Law (2003)

• Spatz, Benjamin, Oliver Windridge, and Catriona Murdoch. "Sanctions as a Mechanism for Accountability for Starvation Crimes." In Accountability for Mass Starvation: Testing the Limits of the Law (2022)

• Akcam, Tanner. A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (2007)

• Graber, G.S. Caravans to Oblivion (1996)

• Shirinian, George N. “Starvation and Its Political Use in the Armenian Genocide.” University of Toronto Press - Genocide Studies International Volume 11, No. 1, (Spring 2017)

• Suny, Ronald Grigor. They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else: A History of the Armenian Genocide (2015)

• Becker, Jasper. Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine (1998)

• Edgerton-Tarpley, Kathryn. Tears from Iron: Cultural Responses to Famine in Nineteenth-Century China (2008)

• Li, Lillian. Fighting Famine in North China: State, Market, and Environmental Decline, 1690s-1990s (2007)

• Wemheuer, F. "Dealing with Responsibility for the Great Leap Famine in the People’s Republic of China." The China Quarterly (2010)

• Will, Pierre-Étienne. Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth-Century China (1990)

• Xun, Z. Forgotten Voices of Mao’s Great Famine, 1958-1962: An Oral History (2013)

• Yang, Jisheng. Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 (2008)

• Yixen, Chen. When Food Became Scarce: How Chinese Peasants Survived the Great Leap Forward Famine (2024)

• Clay, Jason and Bonnie Holcomb. Politics and the Ethiopian Famine 1984–1985 (1986)

• De Waal, Alex. Evil Days: 30 Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia (1991)

• Finn, James. Ethiopia: The Politics of Famine (1990)

• Gill, Peter. Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid (2010)

• Johns, Michael. "Gorbachev's Holocaust: Soviet Complicity in Ethiopia's Famine." Policy Review (1988)

• McCann, James. From Poverty to Famine in Northeast Ethiopia: A Rural History, 1900-1935 (1987)

• Pankhurst, Alula. Resettlement and Famine in Ethiopia: The Villagers' Experience (1992)

• Weldemichel, Teklehaymanot. "Inventing Hell: How the Ethiopian and Eritrean Regimes Produced Famine in Tigray". Human Geography (Novermber 2021)

• Arnold, David. Famine: Social Crisis and Historical Change (1988)

• Aykroyd, Wallace R. The Conquest of Famine (1974)

• Bennett, Jon. The Hunger Machine (1987)

• De Waal, Alex. "Hunger in Global War Economies: Understanding the Decline and Return of Famines." Disasters 49 (2025)

• Devereux, Stephen. Theories of Famine (1993)

• Devereux, Stephen, ed. The New Famines: Why Famines Persist in an Era of Globalization (2007)

• Drèze, Jean, Amartya Sen, and Athar Hussain, eds. The Political Economy of Hunger (1995)

• Dyson, Tim and Cormac Ó Gráda, eds. Famine Demography: Perspectives from the Past and Present (2002)

• Edkins, Jenny. Whose Hunger? Concepts of Famine, Practices of Aid (2000)

• Howe, Paul. "Archetypes of Famine and Response. Disasters 34 (2010)

• Howe, Paul. "Famine Systems: A New Model for Understanding the Development of Famines." World Development 105 (2018)

• Keneally, Thomas. Three Famines: Starvation and Politics (2010)

• Macrae, J. editor. War and Hunger: Rethinking International Responses to Complex Emergencies (1994)

• Maharatna, Arup. The Demography of Famines (1996)

• Ó Gráda, Cormac. Famine: A Short History (2009)

• Ó Gráda, Cormac. Eating People Is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, Its Past, and Its Future (2015)

• Ravallion, Martin. Markets and Famines (1987)

• Rubin, Olivier. Contemporary Famine Analysis (2016)

• Rubin, Olivier. Democracy and Famine (2010)

• Sen, Amartya. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981)

• Sharma, Sanjay. Famine, Philanthropy, and the Colonial State (2001)

• Dando, William. The Geography of Famine (1980)

• Howe, Paul, Theo Anastopoulo, and Chris Newton. "Seeing Famines: An Exploration of the Spatial Dimensions of Severe Hunger Crises." Global Food Security (2025)

• Newton, Chris and Robert Blecher. "The Gaza Starvation Experiment." International Crisis Group (June 2025)

• Newton, Chris and Robert Blecher. "The Vanishing Line Between Starvation and Famine in Gaza." International Crisis Group (May 2025)

• De Waal, Alex. "Famine in Gaza: An Example of the Global Humanitarian Crisis." The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Volume 119, Issue 6 (2024)

• Hionidou, Violetta. Famine and Death in Occupied Greece (2006)

• Hionidou, Violetta. “Black Market, Hyperinflation, and Hunger: Greece 1941-44.” Food and Foodways (2004)

• Hionidou, Violetta. “‘If We Hadn’t Left … We Would Have All Died’: Escaping Famine on the Greek Island of Chios, 1941-44.” Journal of Refugee Studies (2019)

• Hourmouzios, S.L. Starvation in Greece (1943)

• Knight, D. M. "Cultural Proximity: Crisis, Time and Social Memory in Central Greece." History and Anthropology (2012)

• Mazower, Mark. Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-1944 (1993)

• Shirinian, George. The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace, 1912-1923 (2012)

• Shirinian, George. The Greek Genocide, 1913-1923: New Perspectives (2019)

• Conley, Bridget, and Alex De Waal. "The Purposes of Starvation: Historical and Contemporary Uses." Journal of International Criminal Justice (2019)

• De Waal, Alex. Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa (1997)

• De Waal, Alex: Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine (2017)

• Kelly, John. The Graves are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People (2012)

• Kelly, Mary C. Ireland’s Great Famine in Irish-American History: Enshrining a Fateful Memory (2014)

• Kerr, Donal. A Nation of Beggars? Priests, People, and Politics in Famine Ireland, 1846-1852 (1994)

• Kinealy, Christine. A Death-Dealing Famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland (1997)

• Ó Gráda, Cormac. Black ’47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory (1999)

• Ó Gráda, Cormac. Ireland’s Great Famine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2006)

• Woodham-Smith, Cecil. The Great Hunger: Ireland, 1845-1849 (1962)

• Banik, D. Starvation and India’s Democracy (2007)

• Bhatia, B.M. Famines in India, 1860-1965: A Study in Some Aspects of the Economic History of India (1967)

• Biswas, Atreyi. Famines in Ancient India (2000)

• Chakrabarti, Malabika. The Famine of 1896-1897 in Bengal: Availability or Entitlement Crisis? (2004)

• Dyson, Tim, ed. India’s Historical Demography: Studies in Famine, Disease and Society (2022)

• Hall-Matthews, David. Peasants, Famine and the State in Colonial Western India (2005)

• McAlpin, Michelle B. Subject to Famine: Food Crisis and Economic Change in Western India, 1860-1920 (1983)

• Mukherjee, J. Hungry Bengal: War, Famine and the End of Empire (2015)

• Siegel, Benjamin (BU)

• Devereux, Stephen. "The Malawi Famine of 2002." IDS Bulletin 33(4) (2002)

• Tiba, Z. " ‘Maize is Life, But Rice is Money!’ A Village Case Study of the 2001/02 Famine in Malawi." Journal of Agrarian Change 11(1) (2011)

• Vaughn, Megan. The Story of an African Famine: Hunger, Gender, and Politics in Malawi (1989)

• Erichsen, Casper. The Angel of Death Has Descended Violently Amongst Them: Concentration Camps and Prisoners-of-War in Namibia, 1904-08 (2005)

• Erichsen, Casper and David Olusoga. The Kaiser's Holocaust (2010)

• Haussler, Matthias. The Herero Genocide: War, Emotion, and Extreme Violence in Colonial Namibia (2021)

• Sarkin, Jeremy. Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers (2011)

• De Zwarte, Ingrid. The Hunger Winter: Fighting Famine in the Occupied Netherlands, 1944-45 (2020).

• De Zwarte, Ingrid and Lindsay Janssen. "Recalling the Hunger Winter: Evoking Famine Memory Beyond the National." Memory Studies (2022)

• Ekamper, P, G Bijwaard, F van Poppel and L H Lumey. “War-Related Excess Mortality in The Netherlands, 1944–45: New Estimates of Famine- and Non-Famine-Related Deaths from National Death Records.” Historical Methods 50(2) (2017)

• Fahy, Sandra. "Recalling What Was Unspeakable: Hunger in North Korea." In Jonathan Skinner ed. The Interview: An Ethnographic Approach (2012)

• Haggard, S. and N. Noland. Famine in North Korea (2007)

• Naxios, Andrew. The Great North Korean Famine: Famine, Politics, and Foreign Policy (2001)

• Kazemi, Ranin. “The Black Winter of 1860-61: War, Famine, and the Political Ecology of Disaster in Qajar Iran.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 37 (2017)

• Engelk­ing, Barbara and Jacek Leo­ci­ak. The War­saw Ghet­to: A Guide to the Per­ished City (2009)

• Ringelblum, Emmanuel. Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum (1974)

• Roland, Charles. Courage Under Siege: Starvation, Disease, and Death in the Warsaw Ghetto (1992)

• Sinnreich, Helene. The Atrocity of Hunger: Starvation in the Warsaw, Lodz, andKrakow Ghettos During World War II (2023)

• Cuny, Fred. Famine, Conflict, and Response: A Basic Guide (1999)

• Curtis, Donald. Preventing Famine: Policies and Prospects for Africa (1988)

• Fortnam, Matt and Peter Hailey. "Insights from Social‐Ecological Systems Thinking for Understanding and Preventing Famine." Disasters 48 (2024)

• Howe, Paul, Merry Fitzpatrick, and Dan Maxwell. "Five Levels of Famine Prevention: Towards a Framework for the Twenty-First Century and Beyond." Disasters Volume 49 No. 1 (2025)

• Maxwell, Dan, Paul Howe, and Merry Fitzpatrick. "Famine Prevention: A Landscape Report." Feinstein International Center, Tufts University (February 2023)

• Walker, Paul. Famine Early Warning Systems: Victims and Destitution (1989)

• Checchi, F. and W. Courtland Robinson. "Mortality Among Populations of Southern and Central Somalia Affected by Severe Food Insecurity and Famine During 2010–2012." Study commissioned by FAO/FSNAU and FEWS NET from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (2013)

• Haan, Nick, Stephen Devereux, and Dan Maxwell. "Global Implications of Somalia 2011 for Famine Prevention, Mitigation and Response." Global Food Security 1(1) (2012)

• Hillbruner, Chris and G. Moloney. "When Early Warning is Not Enough—Lessons Learned from the 2011 Somalia Famine." Global Food Security 1(1) (2012)

• Jaspars, Susan, Nisar Majid, and G.M. Adan. "Somalia's Evolving Political Market Place: From Famine and Humanitarian Crisis to Permanent Precarity." The Journal of Modern African Studies 61(3) (2023)

• Maxwell, Dan and Merry Fitzpatrick. "The 2011 Somalia Famine: Context, Causes and Complications." Global Food Security 1 (1) (2012)

• Maxwell, Dan, Kirsten Gelsdorf, Nick Haan, and David Dawe eds. "Special Issue on the Somalia Famine of 2011-2012." Global Food Security 1(1) (2012)

• Maxwell, D., Majid, N., Adan, G., Abdirahman, K., & Kim, J. J. "Facing Famine: Somali Experiences in the Famine of 2011." Food Policy 65 (2016)

• Maxwell, Dan and Nisar Majid. Famine in Somalia: Competing Imperatives, Collective Failures, 2011-12 (2016)

• Keen, David. The Benefits of Famine: A Political Economy of Famine and Relief in Southwestern Sudan, 1983-1989 (1994)

• Newton, Chris. "Not Never Again, But Next Time: Armed Conflict and Mass Starvation in South Sudan 2013–2019." In Accountability for Mass Starvation: Testing the Limits of the Law (2022)

Holodomor, Ukraine

• Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine (2017)

• Dolot, Miron. Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust (1985)

Siege Leningrad

• Peri, Alexis. The War Within: Diaries from the Siege of Leningrad (2017)

• Reid, Ann. Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944 (2011)

• Salisbury, H.E. The 900 days: The Siege of Leningrad (2003)

Kazakhstan 

• Cameron, Sarah. The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan (2018)

• Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (1986)

• Davies, Robert W. and Stephen G. Wheatcroft. The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture,1931-33 (2004)

• Ellman, M. “The 1947 Soviet famine and the entitlement approach to famines.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 24 (2000)

• Gerhart, G. “Food and Genocide: Nazi Agrarian Politics in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union.” Contemporary European History 18(1) (2009)

• Moskoff, William. The Bread of Affliction: The Food Supply of the USSR during WWII (1990)

• Carter, Nick. Sudan: The Roots of Famine (1986)

• De Waal, Alex. Famine That Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984-1985 (1989)

• Shepherd, A. "Case Studies of Famine: Sudan." In Preventing Famine: Policies and Prospects for Africa (1988)

• Al-Qattan, Najwa. “When Mothers Ate Their Children: Wartime Memory and the Language of Food in Syria and Lebanon.” International Journal of Middle East Studies (2014) 

• Al-Qattan, Najwa. “Fragments of Wartime Memories from Syria and Lebanon.” In Syria in Word War I: Politics, Economy, and Society (2014)

• Foster, Zachary. “The 1915 Locust Attack in Syria and Palestine and its Role in the Famine during the First World War.” Middle Eastern Studies (2014)

• Kanfash, M., Aljasem, A. "Starvation as Strategy in the Syrian Armed Conflict: Siege, Deprivation, and Detention." In Accountability for Mass Starvation (2022)

• Schilcher, Linda. “The Famine of 1915–1918 in Greater Syria.” Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective (1992)

• Tamari, Salim. Year of the Locust (1999)

• Thompson, Elizabeth. Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (1999)

• Williams, Elizabeth. “Economy, Environment and the Famine: World War I from the Perspective of the Syrian Interior.” In Syria in World War I: Politics, Economy, and Society (2014)

• Biellik, R. and P. Henderson. "Mortality, Nutritional Status, and Diet During the Famine in Karamoja, Uganda, 1980." The Lancet, 318(8259) (1981)

• Doyle, Shane. Crisis and Decline in Bunyoro (2006)

• Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (2001)

• Gunn, Geoffrey. Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam: The Great Famine and the Viet Minh Road to Power (2014)

• Huff, Gregg. "The Great Second World War Vietnam and Java Famines." Modern Asian Studies Volume 54, Issue 2 (March 2020)

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• Brennan, L, L Heathcote, and A Lucas. “War and Famine Around the Indian Ocean During the Second World War.” In Ethics in the Global South (2017)

• Collingham, Lizzie. The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food (2013)

• Johnston, BF. Japanese Food Management in World War II (1953)

• Kerternich, I, B Siflinger, J P Smith, and J K Winter. “The Effects of World War II on Economic and Health Outcomes Across Europe.” Review of Economics and Statistics 96(1) (2014)

• Wheatcroft, Stephen and Cormac Ó Gráda. “The Famines of World Wars I and II.” In Famine in European History (2017)