This is a list of books, papers, and reports concerning historical cases of famine and mass starvation. It is organized broadly by county, transnational theme, and era, though many works could fall under all three categories. The list is not complete, but should provide a useful starting point for scholars and the public alike. It is updated regularly.
For contemporary examples, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) data will provide the most recent data on famine and food insecurity.
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)
Watts, Michael J. Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (2013)
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)
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)