[GOPcapitalist]

Famines which produced widescale death were not common in Europe. Nor were they more common than war.

That is simply wrong. Prior to the 17th century famines struck at least one major European city every decade or so. All it took was two consecutive years of a bad crop cycle and the people starved. That they also typically accompanied any major war in some place or another makes it physically impossible that they could have exceeded such wars in number.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Shortages are not the same as famines.