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Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

Author: Visit Amazon's Geoffrey Parker Page | Language: English | ISBN: 0300153236 | Format: EPUB

Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century Description

Review

"One of the books I found most informative and most perversely enjoyable this year is Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis. It deserves, and rewards, careful reading."—Jane Smiley, Harper's

(Jane Smiley Harper's)

"Mr. Parker tells [the story] with verve. . . . [his] novel interpretation, emphasizing climate instead of individual agency, helps to explain socio-economic change and revolution in ways that future historians will inevitably have to take into account."—Wall Street Journal

(Wall Street Journal)

Selected as one of the best history books of the summer:



"The author sets out to examine a century in which weather patterns radically altered and political, social and economic crises seemed to engulf every part of the world. What relationship does a changing climate bear to global stability? There could scarcely be a more timely question to ask. Parker deploys a dazzling breadth of scholarship in answering it."—Dan Jones, The Times

(Dan Jones The Times 2013-07-06)

“In his monumental new book . . . Parker’s approach is systematic and painstaking . . . giv[ing] us a rich and emotionally intense sense of how it felt to live through chaotic times.”—Lisa Jardine, Financial Times

(Lisa Jardine Financial Times)

Winner of one of the 2012 Heineken Prizes

(Heineken Prize Laureate Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences 2012-06-08)

Sunday Times History Book of the Year 2013

(Sunday Times)

Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2013 in the History, Geography, & Area Studies Category.

(Outstanding Academic Title Choice 2014-01-21)

Received an Honorable Mention for the 2013 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE), in the European & World History category.

(PROSE Awards American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence 2014-02-07)

Winner of the Society for Military History 2014 Distinguished Book Award for the best book-length publication in English on non-United States military history.

(Distinguished Bok Award Society for Military History 2014-02-14)

“Global Crisis is a magnum opus that will remain a touchstone in three areas for at least a generation: the history of the entire globe, the role of climate in history, and the identification of a major historical crisis in the seventeenth century . . . Wide-ranging, monumental works of history are rare; this is one of them.”—Theodore K. Rabb, Times Literary Supplement

(Theodore K. Rabb Times Literary Supplement)

“In this vast, superbly researched and utterly engrossing book, Parker shows how climate change pushed the world towards chaos . . . Parker’s book is not merely powerful and convincing, it is a monument to scholarly dedication.” —Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times

(Dominic Sandbrook Sunday Times 2013-03-24)

“Global Crisis is the production of a scholar. . .who has reflected on what he knows long enough to take on the double task of synthesis and breakthrough. . .Parker regales the reader with some wild and grim tales, interleaved with thoughtful reflections from those who lived through the crises. A more genial geode to disaster one couldn’t hope to find. We shall need more of these in the future.”—Timothy Brook, Literary Review

(Timothy Brook Literary Review 2013-07-01)

“[T]his monumental work by the distinguished historian Geoffrey Parker . . . is a formidable piece of scholarship that goes beyond it’s evident grand scale and ambition as a work of synthesis . . . This book is scholarly and readable, bursting with fully documented examples and authoritative coverage of a vast swathe of 17th-century history, written on a broad canvas but accessible and compelling. It represents a worthy distillation of several decades of Parker’s scholarship, and should provide food for thought for academic historians and interested readers alike.” —Penny Roberts, BBC History Magazine

(Penny Roberts BBC History Magazine 2013-06-01)

“This is indeed a superb and harrowing book, well worth reading for the skill with which Parker summarises the history of pretty well the whole world . . . a fascinating contribution to history.” —Christopher Booker, The Spectator

(Christopher Booker The Spectator 2013-06-01)

“Its subject is huge, sprawling, all-encompassing and there is an almost reckless ambition about its purpose. It is a big book. It is also a brilliant one, but it requires attention, time and thought . . . This history is told with a sustained gusto by Parker but . . . it is the contemporary significance of the book that is truly breathtaking.” —Hugh MacDonald, Sunday Herald

(Hugh MacDonald Sunday Herald 2013-03-24)

“[A] milestone in our understanding of early modern history.” —Theodore K. Rabb, Times Literary Supplement

(Theodore K. Rabb Times Literary Supplement 2013-05-17)

“The clarity with which Parker, a British historian, has assembled a wealth of material makes this long book difficult to put down. The entire world of the 1660s seems only a heartbeat away.” —Patricia Anderson, The Australian

(Patricia Anderson The Australian 2013-10-12)

"A must read that shows how climate change 350 years ago can serve as a harbinger of the possible human consequences of today's rapidly changing climate. Essential. All levels/libraries."—Choice

(Choice)

“[A] staggeringly researched, rivetingly written and intellectually dazzling book. . . I expect it to be read and debated for decades to come.”—The Sunday Times

(The Sunday Times 2013-11-24)

 “A work of formidable erudition and scope from a renowned British authority on early modern history.”—The Financial Times

(Financial Times 2013-11-30)

“My big book of the year has been Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis on the disastrous war-torn 17th century. It fills in gaps, gives different perspectives – not least on Scotland during the Civil War – and opens new areas of history to explore.”—Catronia Graham, The Guardian

(Catronia Graham The Guardian 2013-12-28)

About the Author

Winner of the 2012 Heineken Prize for History, Geoffrey Parker is a renowned British historian who taught at the University of St Andrews, the University of Illinois, the University of British Columbia and Yale University before becoming Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at The Ohio State University.  He is also a Fellow of the British Academy, the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Spanish-American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Cadiz), and the Royal Academy of History (Madrid).  His many books include The Grand Strategy of Philip II, published by Yale in 1998 (winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize) and The Military Revolution (winner of the best book prize of the American Military Institute and the Society for the History of Technology), as well as seminal works on global military history and early modern Europe.

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Hardcover: 904 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1st Edition, 1st Printing edition (April 30, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300153236
• ISBN-13: 978-0300153231
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

This very interesting and well written book is an ambitious survey of the traumatic 17th century. Parker is an expert on 17th century Europe who has written previously on this and quite a number of related topics. This book is a successful attempt to summarize a huge amount of historial information about the 17th century across the globe and draws not only on the very large range of secondary literature but also an impressive number of primary sources. Parker is a fine writer and shrewd analyst.

Even by the turbulent standards of human history, the 17th century was a particularly deadly period. While no one can know for certain, its plausible that somewhere between a quarter and a third of humanity in Eurasia perished prematurely across the 17th century. Famine, disease, and a great deal of prolonged conflict characterized the 17th century. This includes such well known events as the 30 Years War in Europe and the Ming-Qing transition in China. Parker describes 5 interacting features that drove the disasters of the 17th century. This is the period of the Little Ice Age (LIA), which resulted in diminished agricultural output and frequent harvest failures across the globe. Parker points out that the relatively benign 16th century had seen considerable population growth putting greater numbers of people at risk for subsistence crises. Important interacting human factors were the growth across Eurasia of states powerful enough to support substantial and destructive armies but not powerful or rich enough to produce centralized states that could mitigate the environmental and military challenges of the period.

This book tells the story of the 17th century with its chaos, famine, revolutions, harsh weather and wars, and does in an all-encompassing look across the globe.

Much of this story has been told before either in works focusing on individual areas, or as a whole.

The premise underlying this retelling is that harsh and unusual weather/climate had a greater role in triggering the political upheaval than heretofore appreciated.

There is no doubt that the climate was severe based on historical records and observations, and that it resulted in famine, population decrease etc.

It's a little less clear to what extent the climate triggered the political events. The author interjects the climatic variables into the historical story and suggests they played a role but at times it's not clear whether the climatic effects were causal, correlated, or simply co-existed.

So we hear that cold, heat, drought, floods played into the historical events, but in some instances they are interjected into the currency of the events, which is no more meaningful than to acknowledge that while the unusually early and cold winter halted Napolean's and Hitler's attempt to conquer Russia, that the winters were in any way causal of their invasions rather than correlated or co-existent.

In most cases the author attempts to find and indicate causality but the lines do get blurred as to what was causal or coincidental, as the book repeatedly interject into the narrative that 'it was the coldest, hottest, driest, wettest' etc,; points out the disruption and famine that was undoubtedly caused by these changes and infers theeir connections as causative cause rather than an harsh but co-existent modifier of the events.

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