Economic historians are increasingly turning their attention to disasters of all kinds. In many pre-industrial societies, famines were probably the most frequently occurring type of disaster. In industrial(izing) societies, famines were less frequent and probably more avoidable, but their impact could be all the more devastating. The impact of famines varied widely across time and space, depending not only on environmental factors but also on societal response mechanisms. How such responses shaped societies’ ‘famine resilience’ is the topic of this edited volume, which is made up of thirteen chapters (including the introduction), contributed by sixteen authors. The volume has a long time span, with chapters covering antiquity (three), the early modern period (five) and the modern era (seven). The geographical scope is equally broad, with chapters covering societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. Most chapters have a long-range vision or are explicitly comparative in nature.

Famine resilience is studied using a heuristic framework that distinguishes the state, the market and civil society which, the editors maintain, represent ‘the three main coordination mechanisms that, in any society, allow people to allocate or share resources’ (p. 2). The task the various authors set themselves in their chapters is to analyze the (shifting/uneven) role of these forces in facilitating or undermining famine resilience. Most chapters do so comparatively. The opening chapter (Van Leeuwen & Li) lays bare different famine drivers and responses in four core regions of antiquity. Subsequent chapters on the Romans (De Ligt), Ottomans (Çelik) and Incas (Covey) focus on comparisons within empires, stressing the spatially uneven role of governments and markets. Chapters on early modern northwestern Europe (Dijkman) and 1840s Belgium (Beeckaert & Vanhaute) uncover substantial variation among nearby countries and regions within one country, respectively.

Chapters on Indonesia (Bosma) and North India (Sharma) analyze shifting colonial discourses and policies towards food supply and famine relief. In a particularly compelling chapter, S.G. Wheatcroft compares Russia’s and China’s slide into prolonged food crisis during the early twentieth century and subsequent attempts at recovery. Pursuing a similar argument about collapsing resilience, Wang, Koryś and Tymiński make an unusual comparison between Chinese and Polish relief systems in the long run. Africa only enters the picture towards the end of the book, where Devereux explores how markets, states and civil society interacted, often unproductively, during four major twenty-first century famines. The closing chapter on famine and migration (L. Lucassen) stands out for its global approach.

This book will certainly attract those with an interest in historical famines and famine resilience, generally or in specific areas. Many of the chapters provide a relatively short, well-structured and lucid entry point into region-specific literatures, to which many of the authors themselves have contributed in greater length elsewhere. The tripartite framework – markets, states and civil society – proves a helpful overarching structuring device to which most authors adhere effectively. At times, it facilitates comparative arguments, as, for example, where colonial policies are confronted with indigenous civil society initiatives and markets, or where different famine resilience equilibria surface within and across ancient and early modern societies. The book is also full of compelling observations. Just to highlight some: food supply and poverty alleviation systems may function well under normal conditions but fail miserably when food supplies drop, and vice versa; elites may be intent upon avoiding starvation and providing relief during famines so as to legitimize systems of structural inequality and poverty; famines may trigger major historical events, contributing, for example, to the fall of dynasties from China to Ethiopia; if markets function efficiently, food may still not reach the poorest individuals and regions due to lack of effective demand and entitlement failure.

Most book titles that include ‘An economic history of…’ then specify a country or region, providing a fairly clear (albeit broad) entry into what readers might expect. In this case, the title is somewhat enigmatic. Unfortunately, the significance of famine resilience for economic history remains underdefined throughout the book. Famine resilience may intersect with economic historians’ broader research agendas in several ways. First, historical famines can be studied as economic events on their own terms, potentially yielding broader insights into individual and collective behavior, as well as the functioning of markets and institutions. Second, famine resilience can be compared across time and space as an entry point for understanding broader processes of economic change. The impact of famines, for example, may allow us to ‘measure a society’s temperature’ concerning market integration, state capacity or socio-economic inequality. Third, famines can be analyzed as ‘critical junctures’, putting societies onto a different trajectory of (economic) change, sometimes even triggering wholesale revolutions. This volume yields insights relevant to each of these broader agendas, but the authors do not explicitly engage with them. It is unfortunate, indeed, that the introduction itself is brief (10 pages only). While ultimately, therefore, an overarching economic historical narrative on famine resilience is still needed, this volume takes substantial strides in that direction.