Upheaval and Famine: Extreme Climate Event and Response of Regional Society: An Investigation in the Case of the “Severe Famine” in the Shaanxi around 1929
International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)
No.2, 2013
Upheaval and Famine: Extreme Climate Event and Response of Regional Society: An Investigation in the Case of the “Severe Famine” in the Shaanxi around 1929
(Abstract)
Zhang Ping
Famine was the biggest malignant tumor in the two-thousands-years-long Chinese agricultural society. Famine is related with climate. Most of them are resulted from the effects of climate events. Famine also has always been related with people’s abilities to defend themselves from disasters. People’s measures and abilities against disasters in a region will decide the destruction on them by a disaster and how long it lasts. Between 1928 and 1930, there happened an unprecedented famine in the Northern China. It was resulted from draughts and caused huge number of casualties in the rural areas. There have been many studies of the famine. The author analyzes the main reasons for the famine with focus on its climate background, its relations with plantation of opium and political situation. She believes the extreme climate was the main reason for the disaster for the decade long famine, and the weak abilities against disaster, which was resulted from political upheavals, were the fundamental reason for the big famine.