The Starving Empire: A History of Famine in France's Colonies

by Yan Slobodkin

The Starving Empire traces the history of famine in the modern French Empire, showing that hunger is intensely local and sweepingly global, shaped by regional contexts and the transnational interplay of ideas and policies all at once. By integrating food crises in Algeria, West and Equatorial Africa, and Vietnam into a broader story of imperial and transnational care, Yan Slobodkin reveals how the French colonial state and an emerging international community took increasing responsibility for subsistence, but ultimately failed to fulfill this responsibility. Europeans once dismissed colonial famines as acts of god, misfortunes of nature, and the inevitable consequences of backward races living in harsh environments. But as Slobodkin recounts, drawing on archival research from four continents, the twentieth century saw transformations in nutrition, scientific racism, and international humanitarianism that profoundly altered ideas of what colonialism could accomplish. A new confidence in the ability to mitigate hunger, coupled with new norms of moral responsibility, marked a turning point in the French Empire's relationship to colonial subjects―and to nature itself. Increasingly sophisticated understandings of famine as a technical problem subject to state control saddled France with untenable obligations. The Starving Empire not only illustrates how the painful history of colonial famine remains with us in our current understandings of public health, state sovereignty, and international aid, but also seeks to return food―this most basic of human needs―to its central place in the formation of modern political obligation and humanitarian ethics.

Genres: History, France

312 pages, Hardcover

Published November 15, 2023

Reviews

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for class, so it's odd to rate! But I haven't read a book all semester, so I'm desperate to count this. There's a part all about how the development of science of nutrition changed so much of colonial responsibility which was interesting and the way the author presented the research in the chapters made it easier to read. I also met him, which was cool. He was great and that honestly helped my rating - I can't give a guy I met less than 5 stars!