Global crisis : war, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century / Geoffrey Parker.

Includes bibliographies and index.

"Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides - the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were not only unprecedented, they were agonizingly widespread. A global crisis extended from England to Japan, and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. North and South America, too, suffered turbulence. The distinguished historian Geoffrey Parker examines first-hand accounts of men and women throughout the world describing what they saw and suffered during a sequence of political, economic and social crises that stretched from 1618 to the 1680s. Parker also deploys scientific evidence concerning climate conditions of the period, and his use of 'natural' as well as 'human' archives transforms our understanding of the World Crisis. Changes in the prevailing weather patterns during the 1640s and 1650s - longer and harsher winters, and cooler and wetter summers - disrupted growing seasons, causing dearth, malnutrition, and disease, along with more deaths and fewer births. Some contemporaries estimated that one-third of the global population died, and much of the surviving historical evidence supports their pessimism. Parker's demonstration of the link between climate change and worldwide catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary important historical achievement. The implications of his study for the present day are equally important: are we at all prepared today for the catastrophes that climate change could bring tomorrow?"--Jacket.

Prologue : Did someone say 'climate change'? -- Introduction : The 'Little ice age' and the 'General crisis' -- part I: The placenta of the crisis : The little ice age ; The 'General crisis' ; 'Hunger is the greatest enemy': the heart of the crisis ; 'A third of the world has died' : surviving in the seventeenth century -- part II: Enduring the crisis : The 'great enterprise' in China, 1618-84 ; 'The great shaking' : Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, 1618-86 ; The 'Ottoman tragedy', 1618-83 ; The 'lamentations of Germany' and its neighbours, 1618-88 ; The agony of the Iberian Peninsula, 1618-89 ; France in crisis, 1618-88 ; The Stuart monarchy : the path to Civil War, 1603-42 ; Britain and Ireland from Civil War to Revolution, 1642-89 -- part III: Surviving the crisis : The Mughals and their neighbours ; Red flag over Italy ; The 'dark continents' : the Americas, Africa and Australia ; Getting it right: Early Tokugawa Japan -- part IV: Confronting the crisis : 'Those who have no means of support' : the parameters of popular resistance ; 'People who hope only for a change' : aristocrats, intellectuals, clerics and 'dirty people of no name' ; 'People of heterodox beliefs ... who will join up with anyone who calls them' : disseminating revolution. -- part V: Beyond the crisis : Escaping the crisis ; From warfare state to welfare state ; The great divergence -- Conclusion: The crisis anatomized -- Epilogue: 'It's the climate, stupid.'

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