Geoffrey Parkers Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century - Book Report/Review Example

Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century Climate is an inseparable ingredient of our everyday lives. We are aware of the ways in which climate influences our existence today. We are also aware of the current condition of unstable climate and erratic climate changes that are plaguing our lives in the 21st century. In such a scenario, the book “Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century” by famous author Geoffrey Parker would serve as a reservoir of relevant information by giving us a detailed description of the past effects of climate on human life and the probable impacts of climate changes in the future. Geoffrey Parker's book “Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century” is by far the most comprehensive treatise on the climate crisis that arose in the seventeenth century Europe. It is a grand literary work written on a huge canvas with a colossal range of people and events. As rightly observed by Jan de Vries, “the people and institutions that it covers must share the historical stage with another agent of change—the Little Ice Age… which functions as the glue that holds together the era's myriad of events, producing an agricultural, political, and military crisis of global proportions.” (deVries, 370-71 ) Geoffrey Parker is a celebrated British historian, professor and author who has elegantly won his way to the 2012 Heineken Prize for History.  The book “Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century” is yet another feather added to his glorious list of literary accomplishments. This book provides a very intense and comprehensive account of the crucial era of the seventeenth century, by covering its scientific advancements, political changes, military activities and vagaries of climate. For the modern generation living amidst similar threats, the work serves portrays a picture parallel to the Ice Age and gives a stern warning in this regard. This book exemplifies Parker’s mastery in using historical information as an explanation to current issues in question. He effectively portrays the environmental and social crisis that plagued Europe in the seventeenth century and takes it beyond geographical limits to apply it to the overall global context. He thus defies the constraints of time and place in this literary work. He reveals the challenge of the persistently instable climate which he terms as the 'Little Ice Age' that reached its climax or 'tipping point' in the seventeenth century (Parker, xix). Though apparently, his purpose seems to be simply unearthing the realities hidden underneath the grim historical situation, his ultimate aim is to highlight the relevance of the past threats to the present global scenario. This issue echoes through all the pages of his book, thus ensuring the reverberating impact of it upon the minds of the readers despite the remarkable 800-page length of the text. This is a feature that makes the book both interesting and amazing for not only academic historians but also attentive readers. Not only the grand volume, but also the span of its geographical coverage makes the book comprehensive and authoritative. It describes the similarities and disparities in the distribution of the impact of climatic change across various nations including China, Japan, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, India, Africa and the Americas. (Roberts) The book gives a graphic account of the changes that came about in the weather patterns during the era that extended over the 1640s and 1650s. Parker effectively establishes a link between climate change and global calamity that corresponds to an age that existed 350 years before his own existence, which is a remarkable historical achievement in itself. Besides, the elements that make his work extraordinary are the present relevance and modern-day implications of his historical findings. This serves as a revelation as well as a warning for the modern man by compelling him to ponder over the potential impact of climate change on the current global stage. Thomas Hobbes, in his momentary book ‘Leviathan’ written in the 17th century, had presented a grim and painful picture of the “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” life of man during that period. (Hobbes, 124) Parker’s “Global Crisis” further reinforces and validates the facts and opinions listed by Hobbes in his book. Few such incidents and events that find a recurrence in both the phenomenal books are the collapse of the 200-year old Ming dynasty in Szechuan, the Thirty Years War in Europe, the French civil war extending from 1649 to 1653 and the British civil wars between 1638 and 1660. Each one of these events engulfed the lives of innocent people at a rate and a scale that was surprisingly much higher than that of the First World War. The large scale deaths and carnages that took place in that century makes the modern day readers shiver with disbelief and feel lucky for not being victims of that catastrophe. The book consists of a series of summarized accounts of the upheavals across the world in the seventeenth century. It gives a panoramic view of the cyclical chain of events which comprised a series of wars between the kingdoms and empires, imposition of heavy taxes by the rulers to collect larger sums of money, the chaos and destruction created by the wars, the spread of diseases like small pox which made the situation even worse, and a very realistic picture of the plague epidemic that prevailed in Europe ever since the Black Death. The author elaborates how the unfavorable climate conditions further worsened the existing state of affairs. He conveys to the readers the immense sufferings undergone by the people during the phases of the persistent famines, floods, droughts, widespread crop failures, economic breakdowns, cold summers and freezing winters in various countries including Britain, Ireland, India and China. The masses in these countries already stricken by poverty and starvation were further oppressed by the rulers with their demands for higher and never-sufficing taxes. But Parker moves away from the obvious and considers the interplay of meteorological and human factors to find out that it was the execution of imprudent policies followed by religious and political leaders that transformed the crisis that was triggered by a sudden climate change into a massive catastrophe. It is these human factors that from the crux of this text. (Booker) It is a common perception of almost all readers that Geoffrey Parker has given a detailed description of the natural calamities, political upheavals and social revolutions of the period of crisis which was centered in Europe, but made its impact on the world as a whole. But what most of the readers might overlook is that apart from presenting a graphic portrait of the times, Parker has also added a wholly new dimension to its understanding by his readers by underlining the part played by the climate and its vagaries in those courses of events. By adding the perspective on the vagaries of weather, he does not intend in any way to suggest that the harsh weather conditions were solely responsible for the chaos and mass deaths. His point is simply that these vagaries of weather, though not directly responsible for the crisis, played a major role in aggravating the impact of the crisis which was already prevalent as a result of the wars and other social and economic disturbances. To prove his point he draws in solid evidences from various sources. For instance, in order to establish this argument, he cites the occurrence of a rare incident in Ireland that took place in the unusually frosty winter of 1641 when many Protestant men, women and children were stripped off their clothes by the Catholics. These people were then buried in the deep snow leading the death of thousands of them. (Parker 359-97) Parker shows his concern for the readers by opening up with a brief outline of the historical and operational context of the book, thus initially putting his readers at ease. The introduction further lays down the distinct parameters of his thesis, the structure employed in the argument and the approach applied to the mentioned thesis. Then he moves on to explain his stand on issues like war, famine and climate change, which he further elaborates by the use of many case studies regarding the political, social and economic impact of this crisis. Apart from the impact, he also ponders on the cultural after-effects and the long-term consequences of the crisis on the pre-modern human life and issues like gender and social status. The text is characterized with regular subheadings which enable a better understanding and assimilation of the concepts discussed. All the concepts are well illustrated by statistical evidence in the form of tables and graphs. The readers would agree that Parker is very firm and resolute about his personal viewpoint, but he does not try to impose his own judgement upon his readers. He rather tries to convince them through his sound arguments and ample evidence which are drawn from the realms of subjective, objective, visual and empirical. Penny Roberts convincingly states that one reading of this book is more than sufficient to make the readers believe the severe impact of the climate fluctuations in the 17th century such as the adverse weather conditions, the continued fall in temperature, increased rainfall, restricted growth of vegetation and decreasing sunspots. Series of crop failures and famines literally killed the population so heavily dependent on agriculture for their sustenance. This combined with the spread of epidemics and malnutrition led to a shrinking of an otherwise stable population. (Roberts) The book is masterpiece by an expert historian who has skillfully brought together the various strands of multidisciplinary history drawn from a myriad range of sources. The author has carefully organized the documented records of climate change gathered by men across the seventeenth century. These elements from history, wars, politics and climatology have been wonderfully synthesized in this work which enumerates the impact of climate change on mankind. The book is extremely relevant to current debates on climate change and humanity. It opens up interesting res of investigation. It even brings up the issues or challenges faced by the modern historians to measure or estimate the climatic conditions of the mid or early seventeenth century. Keeping records of the climate changes were not possible in those days especially owing to lack in infrastructure and also famines and shortage of food supply. With time the number of observations grew but the author is scientific is scientific as he points out the loophole as when number of observers grow so does the number of observations. The redeeming features of Parker’s writing have been refined and expressed in a review published in the Wall Street Journal as the energy and vitality that breathe through his text. The reader is put at ease by his series of narrative snapshots, his plethora of characters from different eras, his novel interpretation and his way of emphasizing on human actions as agents of change. Despite being a remarkable contribution to historical literature, Parker’s book also serves as a subtle caveat for the modern generation of humans. He successfully induces fear in the reader’s mind by drawing parallels between the weather conditions of the 17th century and the current erratic and unstable weather patterns all across the world. The vanishing of sunspots has been treated as an indicator of the approaching Ice Age. The freezing cold of the 17th century has been echoed in the mention of the unusually frequent recurrences of the El Nino episodes. The author focuses on the fact that human activities in the past have been the prime cause of the environmental crisis. So to bring the present global situation under control it is extremely essential to put a judicious check on the reckless and inconsiderate human activities. This very idea echoes through the final lines of the book when Parker leaves his readers to ponder upon a vital question whether it is better to be prepared for the future from today or to bear the consequences of our passive attitude tomorrow (Parker, 680-86). This feature adds to the novel nature of his book. He leaves the choice to us, his readers, as he believes that unlike our ancestors, we are in a better position to decide since we possess the resources as well as the technology to make a wise choice. References Booker, Christopher. Global Crisis, by Geoffrey Parker – review. The Spectator . 2013. Web. Accessed February 13, 2014: http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/8919751/global-crisis-by-geoffrey-parker-review/ deVries, Jan. "The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: The Little Ice Age and the Mystery of the “Great Divergence”. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 44.3 (2014): 369-377. Web. Accessed February 13, 2014: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/JINH_a_00576 Hobbes, Thomas. “Leviathan”, Parts I and II, revised edition. Broadview Press. 2010, Print. Parker, Geoffrey. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. Yale University Press, 2013. Print. Roberts, Penny. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. BBC History Magazine. 2013. Web. February 13, 2014: http://www.historyextra.com/book-review/global-crisis-war-climate-change-and-catastrophe-seventeenth-century Read More