186 Reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 43 (2014) 175e192
statements about the ‘worst’ summers and ‘most dire’ dearths
would have been avoided. Those seeking a general history of the
period will not find one in Global Crisis which is, by the nature of its
thesis, too attentive to climatic lines of causation. Yet it would be
churlish to end on a negative note, for it is hard to imagine who
other than Geoffrey Parker would have the scholarly range to tie
together seventeenth-century political and environmental history
after this fashion for the entire globe. All will learn much from this
book, even though each of its intended audiences will suffer some
residual frustrations as well.
Robert J. Mayhew
University of Bristol, UK
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2013.10.017
Tirthankar Roy, Natural Disasters and Indian History. . Oxford India
Short Introductions. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2012,
xii þ 165 pages, £7.99 paperback.
The Indian subcontinent lies on a highly active geological margin
and is subject to extreme meteorological conditions. Cyclones
during the summer months have the potential for significant
socioeconomic effects e witness the mass evacuation in
response to Cyclone Mahasen in May 2013 e and the monsoon is
subject to periodic failures. Such natural disasters have occurred
throughout India’s history, but the responses to them have been
neglected in the history of the subcontinent. This is a significant
oversight, as, while determinism should be avoided, the history
of India cannot be understood outside its environmental context.
Furthermore, the historical record can help to direct future
policy responses and reduce the chance that previous mistakes
are repeated.
Attempts to reverse the neglect of environmental history
form the subject of a new Oxford India Short Introduction Nat-
ural Disasters and Indian History by Tirthankar Roy of the London
School of Economics and Political Science. Roy examines the
development of institutional disaster response during colonial
governance in India, beginning with the Bengal famine of 1771
and ending with the Quetta earthquake of 1935. The book draws
out three scales of response that are common to nearly all di-
sasters, through the examination of case studies of major his-
torical famines, cyclones, and earthquakes. The first scale of
response covers a period of weeks or months and comprises a
chaotic period of breakdown in state control. The second is the
rebuilding phase, spanning years and concerned with politics
and cooperation. The third is a decadal process, which comprises
the gradual accumulation of preventative knowledge over a
longer time period.
While not an apologist for colonialism, Roy argues against the
overtly anti-imperial discourse found in many environmental and
famine histories (see Mike Davis’s Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño
Famines and the Making of the Third World (London, 2001) or Rohan
D’Souza’s ‘Drowned and Dammed’: Colonial Capitalism and Flood
Control in Eastern India (New Delhi, 2006)). Such narratives, Roy
argues, can oversimplify the complex issues of protection, insur-
ance, collaboration, location, politics, and economics that drive
decision making in disaster response. For example, the first
response to disasters is categorised by ‘unregulated, anarchic and
predatory’ markets. Previous narratives have attributed this to the
colonial state’s laissez faire response which, conveniently, absolved
it from responsibility for coping with disaster. However, Roy cau-
tions against such a simplistic reading, suggesting that colonial
state had inadequate financial and infrastructural capacity
compared with other colonial countries. This lack of capacity also
hampered the second scale of disaster response, that of rebuilding.
Such a process involved the creation of new legislation and assets
and relied on collaboration between local communities and
indigenous rulers e something which was not always straightfor-
ward. For example, flood embankments were the main item of
investment in public works by the government of Bengal during the
1830s, but by the 1850s the government had almost entirely
retreated from flood defence after difficulties of cooperation with
local landlords (zamindars).
The major success of colonial disaster response, Roy argues, was
in addressing the information deficit that was central to the failures
in the first two scales of response. Famines in the Deccan in the late
nineteenth century led to the creation of the famine codes, which
eventually led to the development of famine early warning systems.
Railways, canals, and widespread media were also established in
order to introduce greater information into the market and buffer
grain price shocks. Predictive science, a key constituent of
contemporary disaster management, grew out of a drive to un-
derstand the causes for natural disasters. The Indian Geological
Survey was formed after the devastating 1819 earthquake in
Kachchh. The Indian Meteorological Department has its roots in the
observations and analyses of Henry Piddington during the first half
of the nineteenth century, in response to repeated cyclones’
damaging shipping in the Bay of Bengal.
Roy’s balanced approach and avoidance of simplistic narratives
is to be commended, since a narrow focus on the failures of colo-
nialism can contribute little to disaster responses in the future.
However, at times he gives the colonial state an easy ride. For
example, the failure of famine relief camps towards the end of the
nineteenth century is attributed by Roy to their location in major
urban centres and their policy of feeding anyone who could work,
factors which meant that support went largely to fairly healthy
people. This is may be true, but it ignores the experiments with the
Temple Wage outlined by Mike Davis, whereby workers in the
camps were fed far less than was necessary to keep them alive (Late
Victorian Holocausts, pp. 38e40). Roy also asserts that the railways
were wholly beneficial in disaster response, an assertion that has
been contested by B.M. Bhatia (Famines in India: a Study in Some
Aspects of the Economic History of India, 1860e1945 (London 1963)
pp. 9e10) and Mike Davis (Late Victorian Holocausts, pp. 26e27)
amongst others.
Roy’s prose is clear and his arguments balanced and detailed,
although his arguments are developed from a narrow selection of
case studies and this leads to a few minor errors. The book would
constitute a valuable addition to any undergraduate or post-
graduate reading list for courses on India’s development and his-
torical geography, and should be recommended to anyone with an
interest in the (post)colonial or economic history of the Indian
subcontinent. Roy’s book provides not just the first systematic
overview of natural disasters in Indian history, but an argument for
a new discipline of the history of natural disasters that moves away
from political criticism and towards informing policy. It is hoped
that this Short Introduction will serve not just as an introduction to
the subject, but also to a new research drive better to understand
the history and trajectory of disaster response in the Indian
subcontinent.
George Adamson
King’s College London, UK
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2013.10.018