Climate Change, Crisis, and Resilience: Perspectives from History - Presentation by Sam White, Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sam White is an assistant professor of History at Oberlin College. He is the author of The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2011), “Rethinking Disease in Ottoman History” (International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2010), “From Globalized Pig Breeds to Capitalist Pigs: A Study in Animal Cultures and Evolutionary History” (Environmental History, 2011), and “Middle East Environmental History: Ideas from an Emerging Field” (World History Connected, 2011). Cosponsored with the Center for Early Modern History. Part of the University Symposium on Abundance & Scarcity.
This talk is also available as an audio download (.mp3 - 43.7 MB) and as a video podcast (.m4v - 222.9 MB).
Climate change forecasts for the coming century have added to alarms over scarcity, mass migration, and instability in the developing world. This presentation discusses current concerns in light of past climate fluctuations and crises, particularly during the early modern “Little Ice Age.” It examines previous patterns in impacts and vulnerabilities and consider why some regions and populations proved more resilient than others, and what lessons we can (or cannot) draw from history.