ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the influence of calamities upon social mobility and organization. It focuses on the transformations that are typical, or recurrent, and upon the typical changes that seem to be the most important. The magnitude of the migration caused by famine depends upon the degree of the satisfaction of hunger by such means as the importation of food into the areas affected and the distribution of the available local surpluses. Since, however, such expedients are generally inadequate, virtually all famines have led to a peaceful or violent exodus. Many waves of emigration and colonization have constituted merely a variety of the exodus due to famine or food restrictions. The colonizing movements of the Greeks and Romans, and mass movements such as the Crusades, were caused, directly or indirectly, by this factor in conjunction with other forces.
