Originally published March 23, 2025 (Episode 401)
Introduction
Welcome to the start of the next hundred episodes of Historically Thinking. We’ve just crossed the 400 mark, and Episode 401 kicks off a new stretch of conversations about history and how it shapes the world we live in.
In 1845 a water mold named Phytophthora infestans, which afflicts potato and tomato plants, began to spread across Europe, killing potatoes from Sweden to Spain. “The potato blight caused crisis everywhere it appeared in Europe,” writes my guest Padraic X. Scanlan; “in Ireland, it caused an apocalypse.”
In 1845, a third of the United Kingdom’s population lived in Ireland; an 1841 census had counted 8.2 million people. In the next six years, one million of them would die from famine-related causes, and another 1.5 million emigrated. The 1851 census totaled the Irish population at 6.5 million, and the decline continued for another century.
And the consequences were not only demographic. The famine frayed or destroyed communal and familial relationships, and left scars of psychological trauma that endured for generations.
About the Guest
Padraic X. Scanlan is an associate professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources and the Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. The author of two previous books, his latest is Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine (Basic Books, 2025), which is the subject of our conversation today.
For Further Investigation
Padraic X. Scanlan, Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine (Basic Books, 2025)
—, Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain (Robinson, 2022)
—, Freedom’s Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution (Yale, 2017)
Related Episodes
Mosquito – Timothy C. Winegard on the history of the world’s deadliest predator
Pox Romana – Colin Elliott on pandemics in the Roman world
After the Black Death – Mark Bailey on the social and economic changes the plague made in England
Suggested Readings and Resources
Christine Kinealy, This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845–52 (Gill Books, 2006)
Cormac Ó Gráda, Black ’47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory (Princeton, 2000)
James Donnelly, The Great Irish Potato Famine (The History Press, 2008)
Listen and Discuss
After listening, share your thoughts: How should we think about famine as both a natural and a political disaster? Comment below, and share this episode.
