I came to famine from economics through economic history. I actually do not have much formal background in history and one could say I am a self-taught historian. By way of introduction, could you briefly explain how you arrived at this topic? As an Irish historian, we imagine “Black’47” could have triggered your interest… is it true? 1Ĭormac Ó Gráda (COG): First, by way of background, I am an economist rather than a historian. Helena Silva, Ana Isabel Queiroz (HS, AIQ): You are “the person” to talk about Famines in History. 1 Black’47 and the Great Famine are names given to the famine that affected Ireland between 1846 and (.).Finally, Ó Gráda mentions future outlines on food shortages. In this conversation, which took place on the eve of his lecture, he shares with us his definition of famine, talks about the causes of famines throughout history, and discusses their effects on population. He is a prolific scholar, having published dozens of papers as well as several books, the most recent being Famine – a Short History (2009), Eating People Is Wrong (2015), and Famine in European History (2017), co-edited with Guido Alfani.ĢIn September 2019, Cormac Ó Gráda was in Lisbon to speak about “Europe’s last famines” as part of a cycle of workshops and conferences on the “History of Poverty and Hunger”, organised by the Institute of Contemporary History (IHC, NOVA FCSH) and the National Library of Portugal. Alone or with colleagues, he has addressed issues ranging from the role of science in the Industrial Revolution to plague in seventeenth-century London, and from the Little Ice Age in Europe to the famines of World Wars I and II. His research has focused on the economic history of Ireland, Irish demographic changes, and the Great Irish Famine (as well as other famines in different geographies and chronologies), among other topics. 1Cormac Ó Gráda (born in 1945) is an Irish economic historian and professor emeritus of economics at University College Dublin.

Amartya sen 1981