What Made the Irish Famine So Deadly

intan O’Toole The New Yorker
The Great Hunger was a modern event, shaped by the belief that the poor are the authors of their own misery and that the market must be obeyed at all costs.

food

How the Potato Changed the Course of World History

Matthew Wills JStor.org
The potato is native to the Andes, where it’s been cultivated for at least 4,000 years. Historian William H. McNeill contends that the potato fundamentally changed world history. European armies marched on what they foraged locally even if it meant peasants starved to death as a result.
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