Climate Changes, Plagues, and WarsThe Crisis of the Fourteenth Century in the Afro-Eurasian Context

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.