Global Crisis: War, Climate Change, & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century
The acclaimed historian demonstrates a link between climate change and social unrest across the globe during the mid-17th century.
Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides, government collapses—the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were unprecedented in both frequency and severity. The effects of what historians call the "General Crisis" extended from England to Japan and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas.
In this meticulously researched volume, historian Geoffrey Parker presents the firsthand testimony of men and women who experienced the many political, economic, and social crises that occurred between 1618 to the late 1680s. He also incorporates the scientific evidence of climate change during this period into the narrative, offering a strikingly new understanding of the General Crisis.
Changes in weather patterns, especially longer winters and cooler and wetter summers, disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests. This in turn brought hunger, malnutrition, and disease; and as material conditions worsened, wars, rebellions, and revolutions rocked the world.Reviews (79)
Incredible book, lives up to its awards
This is a huge and fascinating book about the great crisis of the 17th century. The author is perhaps the greatest living historian of 16th-17th century Iberia, and here he expands his scope to the entire world. He draws connections to the disruptive climate (weather) of the time, one of the temperature troughs in the multi-century Little Ice Age, which is valid, and he avoids overstating his case as most climate warriors seem to do. There are plenty of lessons for today, both climate-related and otherwise (like, tax revolts in France, very current as I write in January 2019). I note that as for climate, all the historical analyses I have seen, including this one, emphasize the bad effects of COOLING, not WARMING. To the extent we expect climate to change (and it is always doing something), we should expect there to be disruptions in human activity, pluses and minuses.
A more encompassing history for a century of human society than I had expected
After a couple of scattershot chapters it gets into a country by country history and does a major service to the historical discourse by adding in the food production and taxation effects as the events unfolded. It was also fascinating to look across cultures at the same time: the Chinese, Russian, Ottoman, and European, amongst others, to see that all faced severe weather related problems, but often reacted differently. Recommended for those who are interested in how human society survived and progressed in a particularly trying century.
Global Crisis and how badly we were taught history in the sixties.
This great book by Geoffrey Parker was for me, as a Dutchman, a real eye opener. We were always taught at school that the 17th century was called Holland’s Golden Century (Gouden Eeuw). But halfway through this century the Dutch Provinces lost their global influence in trade and their society slit into relative poverty. All this happened rather quickly and has been incomprehensible for many. Parker, in a very captivating way, put this global era in a completely new perspective. He not only describes the effects sudden climate change had on society. Like failing crops, there for no food for the population, with the result that 30% of society just starved. The bottom third of the global population was pushed over the cliff. But also describes, in a very fascinating way, how governments and policy makers muddled through this period. Because of their total lack: of understanding, information and communication. Today we know more and understand more and we have constant actual information we can communicate instantly. I sincerely hope that today’s governments and policy-makers read this book, so we will do better with the eminent climate change we have on our doorstep today.
Major work of history
This is a great work; it will stand as a major history of human beings dealing with multiple crises. I have to disagree with those who say it's "not for the beach" just because it's long. It is so well and compellingly written that it served me well on a long vacation. Infinitely better than those horrible long novels people take with them. My one problem is that Dr. Parker does not really prove a case that climate caused the revolutions and wars. He stops a bit short of saying it did. He correlates wars and rebellions with the horrible climate events of the Little Ice Age, but--in a particularly good section of the book--notes that the awful climate events continued well into the 18th century, but the wars didn't. In fact, the 18th century begat the Enlightenment, partly in reaction to all those wars in the 17th. So, in fact, climate problems sometimes go with wars and sometimes go with revolutions and sometimes with neither one. Not much hope of causal chains there. In some cases, the wars were predictable long before the climate turned bad. The Ming Dynasty's survival till 1644 was a still-unexplained miracle; it was rotten and tottering by 1550 (or even 1500) and would surely have fallen in the 17th century, climate or no. The religious wars of Europe were also a long time coming; they started in the 1200s with the Albigensian Crusade and got steadily more serious as Protestantism appeared. The climax in the 17th century was fairly predictable. So, how much does climate explain? It certainly made people more desperate. It certainly displaced millions, and displaced people have much less vested interest in peace than stably located ones. We will need a lot more studies. Of course, Parker is writing with an eye to our current period of rapid climatic change. I expect that we will see either lots of wars or lots of action to stop climate change. Possibly both. Dr. Parker provides a scary scenario of what might happen (again).
A Great Read!!!
This is a must-read book for anyone interested in or who doubts the effects of climate change. There are some real eye-opening facts in this well-researched, highly readable historical book. The consequences of climate change are laid in in clear, easy to understand sections that cover the span of the globe and how different cultures struggled to deal with the wild swings in weather during the 17th Century. When a dearth of sunspots, coupled with an increase in volcanic activity combined to drop worldwide temperatures by 0.5 to 2 degrees Celsius. It may not seem like much but simple mathematics show the devastating effects even such apparently small changes can have on food production.
Requires the patience of a scholar.
I don’t mean to undermine the work that went into this thesis, but it needs to be clearly positioned as a textbook and not as something that might appeal to the everyday reader. The narrative also fails at points to follow any sort of logical progression. That said, high marks for perseverance and effort.
A wonderul data base that helps explain the explosion of the Elightenment and technology in response to starvation
A massive book that is clearly written and ties The 30 Years War, Plagues, Revolutions around the world, and population crises and crash together. Not a Grand Theory book so much as it is an impressive mining of many sources of data to explain how and why the Western World changed so radically and the Enlightenment and technological developments exploded in the 18th Century.
Excellent Research and Analysis on a Calamitous Century
The 17th century appears to be the most calamitous century ever recorded in history. The author does an excellent job of researching this century, its events and the impact and the analysis is also excellent. The author covers all the events of the 17th century, including the wars, the revolutions, the droughts, the major weather events, etc. Further, he lays out the impact of these events on the people who experienced it. Apparently, due to the events of this century, the population of the planet declined 33% with some areas experiencing even worse declines, e.g. China close to 50% and Germany. The reasons for this, the author claims, and provides an excellent rationale to support his conclusions, starts with the worst climate of recorded history. The 17th century experienced some of the coldest months and years on record, some of the driest months and years, some of the wetest months and years, etc. One of the main reasons, apparently, was due to the lack of sun spots. However, El Nino raised its ugly head also to impact the weather differently in different regions of the world. Further, instead of trying to help out their citizens, the 17th century had more wars and longer wars than another century in recorded history. There were only three years in Europe where a war was not being fought. And, there was the 30 years war that totally depopulated parts of Germany and which is still consider by many Germans to be the most calamitous period of German history (even beyond WWII). And, then there was the overthrow of the Ming dynasty in China that resulted in a huge depopulation of that country. And, these wars, droughts, etc., and the resulting hunger and crushing taxes, resulted in rebellions and revolts. The most recognized one is the English Civil War (and Cromwell) which resulted in the only time that the English executed their monarch, King James I. But there were many others, including many parts of the Spanish empire, including Barcelona, Portugal and Naples. These revolts appear to have caused the start of the decline of Spain. To me, much of the book was new and interesting. However, this is a long and can be challenging read. And, the author often takes direct quotes from first persons, especially English, and these comments are horribly misspelled making it even harder to read. Finally, the conclusions - linking the 17th century to today was a stretch. We don't have anywhere near the amount of wars and revolutions occurring and we have the United Nations as a forum to handle these issues. And, whether we are as unprepared for climate change is arguable. In spite of some the challenges, I do recommend this book for anyone interested in history. To me, this was worth the investment in money and time.
conceptual breadth
I've read the reviews of others and in general agree. I have also read others on this period of climate history and while Fagan tells a great story, what makes this work stand out is the astonishing amount of dat woven into almost every page. Parker has clearly stepped out on a conceptual limb by arguing that climate interacted in significant ways with politics and culture, but his weaving of facts with interpretation is hard to dismiss. I've a few publications myself - research on human behavior - and I appreciate the scholarship labor that must have been involved in drawing this much information into the larger canvas of climate and human outcomes. Due to its length and detail, this is not a book for the casual reader. But for those who wish to really grasp a powerful way to unravel the complexities of the 17th Century, this book is priceless. When I read a text like this all I find myself wanting to do is write a long thank you note to the author. This book is a gift to us all.
Global Crisis War
Purchased for college. Good price, came with no damage. Highly recommend.
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