Climate Changes, Plagues and Wars
The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century in the Afro-Eurasian Context
Edited by Nicola Di Cosmo, Yoichi Isahaya
Expands the study of the Crisis of the Fourteenth Century beyond its conventional Eurocentric focus
- Approaches the 'crisis of the fourteenth century' by bringing together thus-far neglected topics and case studies
- Includes new data and analyses from the field of climatology and environmental studies
- Makes historical connections between non-European political upheavals and trans-continental pandemic typically not considered in historical studies of the fourteenth-century crisis
- Provides a global dimension to the fourteenth-century crisis
- Corrects the conventional Eurocentric perspective by focusing on Asia and the Middle East (Afro-Eurasia)
The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century has been regarded as a turning-point in world history, but it has typically only been approached from a European perspective. This volume expands that view by focusing on Asia and the Middle East (Afro-Eurasia) and by including environmental approaches that recognise the shifts in the Eurasian socio-ecological regime from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the Little Ice Age. It therefore positions this period of history within three interrelated contexts – climate change, political upheaval outside Europe and a transcontinental pandemic – making historical connections typically not considered in studies of the Crisis.
Bringing together thus-far neglected topics and case studies, and based on new sources and palaeo-scientific data, this book analyses the Crisis through an interdisciplinary lens. This intersection of climatology, environmental studies and history adds a long-awaited global dimension to the existing scholarship.
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
List of Figures
Introduction: The Crisis of the 14th Century in Afro-Eurasian Context
Nicola Di Cosmo & Yoichi Isahaya
1. Cistercian Monasteries and Rural Society in the Rhine-Moselle-Meuse Region during the Transition to the Little Ice Age
Toshio Ohnuki
2. Cooling in the Lower Amur Basin in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Kazuyuki Nakamura
3. Climate Anomalies and Disasters in China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Nobuhiro Uno & Takeshi Nakatsuka
4. Snowfall in Baghdad: The Mongol Empire on the Threshold of the Little Ice Age
Yoichi Isahaya & Takeshi Nakatsuka
5. Between the Adriatic and the Caspian Sea: Socio-Environmental Perspectives on the Crisis of the Fourteenth Century from the Former Byzantine and Future Ottoman Imperial Spheres
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller
6. Climate and Famines in the Rus’ Principalities and the Golden Horde in the Fourteenth Century: A Comparison of Historical Records and Climate Proxies
Ruslan Shakhmatov
7. Looking for Trouble: Non-Textual Indications of Plague Morality Crises in the Late Chinggisid World, c.1330-1400
Philip Slavin
8. Epidemics and the Fourteenth Century’s Decline of the Chinggisid States: A Reassessment
Ishayahu Landa
9. The Crisis of 1343 on the Black Sea: Causes, Context and Consequences
Nicola Di Cosmo
10. A Witness of Two Dynasties’ Decadence: The Life and Career of Arghūn Shāh al-Nāṣirī in the Shadow of 14th Century Crisis
Yihao Qiu
Index
