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Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century
An accessible synthesis of the prescient best seller exploring seventeenth-century catastrophe and the impact of climate change First published in 2013, Geoffrey Parker’s prize-winning best seller Global Crisis analyzes the unprecedented calamities—revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, and regicides—that befell the mid-seventeenth-century world and wiped out as much as one-third of the global population, and reveals climate change to be the root cause. Examining firsthand accounts of the crises and scrutinizing the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s—longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers—Parker reveals evidence of disrupted growing seasons causing malnutrition, disease, a higher death toll, and fewer births. This new abridged edition distills the original book’s prodigious research for a broader audience while retaining and indeed emphasizing Parker’s extraordinary historical achievement: his dazzling demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago. Yet, the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow? At half the original length, this user-friendly abridgment is ideal for students and general readers seeking a rapid handle on the key issues.
1110914340
Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century
An accessible synthesis of the prescient best seller exploring seventeenth-century catastrophe and the impact of climate change First published in 2013, Geoffrey Parker’s prize-winning best seller Global Crisis analyzes the unprecedented calamities—revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, and regicides—that befell the mid-seventeenth-century world and wiped out as much as one-third of the global population, and reveals climate change to be the root cause. Examining firsthand accounts of the crises and scrutinizing the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s—longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers—Parker reveals evidence of disrupted growing seasons causing malnutrition, disease, a higher death toll, and fewer births. This new abridged edition distills the original book’s prodigious research for a broader audience while retaining and indeed emphasizing Parker’s extraordinary historical achievement: his dazzling demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago. Yet, the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow? At half the original length, this user-friendly abridgment is ideal for students and general readers seeking a rapid handle on the key issues.
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Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century
An accessible synthesis of the prescient best seller exploring seventeenth-century catastrophe and the impact of climate change First published in 2013, Geoffrey Parker’s prize-winning best seller Global Crisis analyzes the unprecedented calamities—revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, and regicides—that befell the mid-seventeenth-century world and wiped out as much as one-third of the global population, and reveals climate change to be the root cause. Examining firsthand accounts of the crises and scrutinizing the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s—longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers—Parker reveals evidence of disrupted growing seasons causing malnutrition, disease, a higher death toll, and fewer births. This new abridged edition distills the original book’s prodigious research for a broader audience while retaining and indeed emphasizing Parker’s extraordinary historical achievement: his dazzling demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago. Yet, the contemporary implications of his study are equally important: are we prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow? At half the original length, this user-friendly abridgment is ideal for students and general readers seeking a rapid handle on the key issues.
Geoffrey Parker is Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History and associate of the Mershon Center at The Ohio State University, and the 2012 winner of the Heineken Prize for History. He lives in Columbus, OH.
Table of Contents
List of Figures ix
Preface to the Abridged and Revised Edition xi
Prologue: Did Someone Say 'Climate Change'? xiii
Introduction: The Little Ice Age and the General Crisis xix
Part I The Placenta of the Crisis
1 The Little Ice Age 3
2 The General Crisis 24
3 'Hunger Is the Greatest Enemy': The Heart of the Crisis 49
4 Surviving in the Seventeenth Century 67
Part II Enduring the Crisis
5 The Great Enterprise in China, 1618-84 91
6 The 'Great Shaking': Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 1618-86 122
7 The 'Ottoman Tragedy', 1618-83 150
8 Bloodlands: Germany and its Neighbours, 1618-88 169
9 The Agony of the Iberian Peninsula, 1618-89 198
10 France in Crisis, 1618-88 227
11 The Stuart Monarchy: The Path to Civil War, 1603-42 249
12 Britain and Ireland from Civil War to Revolution, 1642-89 274
Part III Surviving the Crisis
13 The Mughals and their Neighbours 301
14 Red Flag over Italy 315
15 The Americas, Africa and Australia 331
16 Getting It Right: Early Tokugawa Japan 356
Part IV Confronting the Crisis
17 'Those Who Have No Means of Support': The Parameters of Popular Resistance 377
18 'People Who Hope Only For a Change: Aristocrats, Intellectuals, Clerics and 'Dirty People of No Name' 394
19 'People of Heterodox Beliefs … Who Will Join Up with Anyone Who Calls Them': Disseminating Revolution 411
Part V Beyond the Crisis
20 Escaping the Crisis 433
21 Warfare State or Welfare State? 448
22 The Great Divergence 473
Conclusion: The Crisis Anatomized 497
Epilogue: 'It's the Climate, Stupid' 512
Chronology 526
Acknowledgements 535
Conventions 539
Note on Sources 540
Abbreviations Used in the Bibliography and Notes 546