For my data visualisation website I collected a long list of famines (for the time since the Potato Famine around 1850) – I'd be interested in whether I'm missing some and whether there are additional sources that I should take into account?

by Max_OurWorldinData

You find my list here: http://www.ourworldindata.org/data/food-agriculture/famines

Thanks for having a look!

agentdcf

I don't know if you've missed any, but as a food historian I think you're citing at least some of the right people. You might also check out Mike Davis's book Late Victorian Holocausts. It's an interpretation of the series of Indian famines documented here as effects of El Nino, combined with colonial policies that eroded traditional irrigation systems and thus made Indian cultivators more vulnerable to years without monsoons.

I don't think Davis will have any information that you don't already have here, because he's not really researching the famines themselves so much as their situation in colonial administration. But, you might mine his footnotes a bit to see if there's any famine literature that you missed.

EvanRWT

If I may make a suggestion, you should change the legend of the y-axis on your graph from "victims" to something else. "Victims" is too non-specific. Were they malnourished? Did they get diseases of malnutrition? Did they simply fall behind the rest of the population in education and attainments? Was their growth stunted? Did they die?

If you mean "excess mortality due to famine", then say so. "Victim" doesn't mean much, and to most people it implies that some crime was committed. No doubt some famines were due to wars or other human action, but it's a stretch to call someone a victim of the failure of the monsoons, or Phytophthora infestans' affinity for the potato crop.