irish famine

In his new book, "Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine," Historian Padraic Scanlan debunks common myths about the Famine and traces the ecological and economic consequences to the crises of today, such as food insecurity and climate change.

More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the late 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken…