Famine in Peasant Societies

Famine in Peasant Societies PDF Author: Ronald E. Seavoy
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
In this controversial study, Seavoy offers a new approach to the problem of periodic peacetime famine based on the actual behavior of peasants. He maintains that it is possible to increase per capita food production without massive and inappropriate technological inputs. Seavoy shifts the focus from modern development economics to a cultural and historical analysis of subsistence agriculture in Western Europe (England and Ireland), Indonesia, and India. From his survey of peasant civilization practices in these countries, he generalizes on the social values that create what he terms the subsistence compromise. In all of the ages and culture, Seavoy finds a consistent social organization of agriculture that produces identical results: seasonal hunger in poor crop years and famine conditions in consecutive poor crop years. He argues that economic policies have failed to increase per capita food production because economists and government planners try to apply market-oriented policies to populations that are not commercially motivated. Once they understand the subsistence compromise, policy-makers can take appropriate political action.

Famine in Peasant Societies

Famine in Peasant Societies PDF Author: Ronald E. Seavoy
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 508

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this controversial study, Seavoy offers a new approach to the problem of periodic peacetime famine based on the actual behavior of peasants. He maintains that it is possible to increase per capita food production without massive and inappropriate technological inputs. Seavoy shifts the focus from modern development economics to a cultural and historical analysis of subsistence agriculture in Western Europe (England and Ireland), Indonesia, and India. From his survey of peasant civilization practices in these countries, he generalizes on the social values that create what he terms the subsistence compromise. In all of the ages and culture, Seavoy finds a consistent social organization of agriculture that produces identical results: seasonal hunger in poor crop years and famine conditions in consecutive poor crop years. He argues that economic policies have failed to increase per capita food production because economists and government planners try to apply market-oriented policies to populations that are not commercially motivated. Once they understand the subsistence compromise, policy-makers can take appropriate political action.

Famine in Peasant Societies

Famine in Peasant Societies PDF Author: Ronald E. Seavoy
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 506

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this controversial study, Seavoy offers a new approach to the problem of periodic peacetime famine based on the actual behavior of peasants. He maintains that it is possible to increase per capita food production without massive and inappropriate technological inputs. Seavoy shifts the focus from modern development economics to a cultural and historical analysis of subsistence agriculture in Western Europe (England and Ireland), Indonesia, and India. From his survey of peasant civilization practices in these countries, he generalizes on the social values that create what he terms the subsistence compromise. In all of the ages and culture, Seavoy finds a consistent social organization of agriculture that produces identical results: seasonal hunger in poor crop years and famine conditions in consecutive poor crop years. He argues that economic policies have failed to increase per capita food production because economists and government planners try to apply market-oriented policies to populations that are not commercially motivated. Once they understand the subsistence compromise, policy-makers can take appropriate political action.

Famine in East Africa

Famine in East Africa PDF Author: Ronald E. Seavoy
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Efforts to commercialize agriculture in peasant societies through investments in technology and various pricing strategies have failed to create the food surpluses needed to forestall famine and support industrialization in East Africa. Seavoy explores this problem, basing his study on the case of Tanzania, a country that experiences recurrent peacetime famines associated with failures in subsistence agriculture. Providing an analysis of East African subsistence culture, he investigates the failures of national agricultural policies and defines strategies for inducing subsistence farmers to shift to commercial production. Seavoy looks at various development initiatives involving technological inputs, political pressure, taxation, and land tenure provisions and their effects on the political economy of subsistence agriculture. He presents a detailed survey of subsistence culture, its agricultural and pastoral practices, and such variables as labor, topography, rainfall, and population density. The shaping of the East African political economy under colonial rule is discussed, together with the economic, social, and political legacy that has persisted to the present day. Seavoy examines Tanzanian agricultural policy, which has aimed at facilitating the transition to commercial agriculture. He finds that the country is a long way from achieving the assured food surpluses that would enable the nation to support an urban industrial workforce. Among the underlying causes he notes the continuing population explosion, the farmers' objections to commercialized agriculture, and deficiencies in the physical infrastructure, trained personnel, and political institutions. He argues that surpluses will not be created until political leaders use the power of national government to enforce the shift to commercial production. A noteworthy and original contribution to development literature, this work is relevant to studies in modern political economy, Third World development, agricultural economy, and related disciplines.

In the Track of the Russian Famine

In the Track of the Russian Famine PDF Author: Edward Arthur Brayley Hodgetts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Famines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


An Economic History of Famine Resilience

An Economic History of Famine Resilience PDF Author: Jessica Dijkman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429577583
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Book Description
Food crises have always tested societies. This volume discusses societal resilience to food crises, examining the responses and strategies at the societal level that effectively helped individuals and groups to cope with drops in food supply, in various parts of the world over the past two millennia. Societal responses can be coordinated by the state, the market, or civil society. Here it is shown that it was often a combined effort, but that there were significant variations between regions and periods. The long-term, comparative perspective of the volume brings out these variations, explains them, and discusses their effects on societal resilience. This book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers across economic history, institutional economics, social history and development studies.

The Great Maya Droughts

The Great Maya Droughts PDF Author: Richardson B. Gill
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826327741
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
Proposes a long sought solution to the mystery of the collapse of the Maya civilization: a series of severe droughts during the ninth and tenth centuries which brought famine, thirst, and death to the Maya lowlands.

Poverty and Famines

Poverty and Famines PDF Author: Amartya Sen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191037435
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The main focus of this book is on the causation of starvation in general and of famines in particular. The author develops the alternative method of analysis—the 'entitlement approach'—concentrating on ownership and exchange, not on food supply. The book also provides a general analysis of the characterization and measurement of poverty. Various approaches used in economics, sociology, and political theory are critically examined. The predominance of distributional issues, including distribution between different occupation groups, links up the problem of conceptualizing poverty with that of analyzing starvation.

A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, C. 1295-1344

A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, C. 1295-1344 PDF Author: Judith Bennett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
This history of medieval village life is told through the experiences of Cecilia Penifader, a peasant woman who lived on one English manor in the early fourteenth century. This truly unique book offers a wealth of insight into medieval peasant society, bringing many of the characteristics of a time and a people to life. Short and readable, it is an ideal text for undergraduate teaching, suitable for courses in Western civilization, medieval history, women's history, and English history.

Irish Peasant Society

Irish Peasant Society PDF Author: Kenneth Hugh Connell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780716526100
Category : Ireland
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
First published in 1968, this work ranges far and wide over the neglected field of Irish social history. It comprises four essays: 'Illicit Distillation', 'Ether Drinking in Ulster', 'Illegitimacy before the Famine' and 'Catholicism and Marriage in the Century after the Famine'. As a historian Professor Connell had a highly individualistic style, avoided generalizations and scrupulously documented his assertions. Much of his wealth of documentation was drawn from the parliamentary papers, but he also used the invaluable material for social history collected by the Irish Folklore Commission, as well as the conclusions drawn by various commentators on the Irish social scene in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Irish Peasants

Irish Peasants PDF Author: Samuel Clark
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299093747
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
"The strength of this volume cannot be conveyed by an itemisation of its contents; for what it provides is an incisive commentary on the newly-recognised landmarks of Irish agrarian history in the modern period. . . . The importance, even indispensability, of this achievement is compounded by exemplary editing."—Roy Foster, London Times Literary Supplement "As a whole, the volume demonstrates the wealth, complexity, and sophistication of Irish rural studies. The book is essential reading for anyone involved in modern Irish history. It will also serve as an excellent introduction to this rich field for scholars of other peasant communities and all interested in problems of economic and political developments."—American Historical Review "A milestone in the evolution of Irish social history. There is a remarkable consistency of style and standard in the essays. . . . This is truly history from the grassroots."—Timothy P. O'Neill, Studia Hibernica