Tears from iron : cultural responses to famine in nineteenth-century China

Summary: "This multilayered history of a horrific famine that took place in late-nineteenth-century China focuses on cultural responses to trauma. The catastrophe in question, a massive drought-famine that killed at least ten million people in North China during the late 1870s, remains one of China?s most severe disasters and provides a particularly vivid window through which to study the human and social side of a nation?s tragedy. Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley's original and stimulating approach explores an array of new or unexploited source materials, including songs, poems, stele inscriptions, folklore, and oral accounts of the famine from Shanxi Province, its epicenter. She juxtaposes these local narratives against central government, treaty-port, and foreign debates over the meaning of the related events and shows how the famine, which occurred during a period of deepening national crisis, elicited widely divergent reactions from different levels of Chinese society. Her analysis contributes a broader and deeper understanding of the Incredible Famine than has previously been available in English and situates the tragedy alongside Irish and Indian famines to provide a truly global comparison of cultural responses to famine in the nineteenth century."--BOOK JACKET.