This is the first book to bring together groundbreaking scholarship focusing on the various ways in which famines result from political decision-making, and how the threat, occurrence, relief, or memory of famine are instrumentalized as a political and military tool.

Contributions to this volume show the complexities, variations, and motivations in which famines have been instrumentalized by political actors and regimes, and how the politics of perpetrating hunger and the politics of relieving it have often been entwined. They also address how famine legacies have been subsequently politicized in public debates, educational practices, and popular media; and how these socially and politically constructed memories and myths, in turn, informed broader narratives about hunger and humanitarianism both in history and today.

The Politics of Famine in European History and Memory provides a crucial resource for scholars and students from all disciplines interested in the study of famines, as well as those interested in the history of war and troubled pasts more generally.