Famines—that is the lack of food that results in widespread mortality—capture the headlines though the public sometimes grows weary of and feels helpless before these catastrophes. In fact, reporting on famines goes back centuries and especially during the nineteenth century. The spread of newspapers and telegraphs, and rising literacy across the West, helped the news. In other words, people in places like London and New York knew of the suffering of South Asians, as this illustration painfully demonstrates.