The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History

This handbook offers the first comprehensive, state-of-the-field guide to past weather and climate and their role in human societies. Bringing together dozens of international specialists from the sciences and humanities, this volume describes the methods, sources, and major findings of historical climate reconstruction and impact research. Its chapters take the reader through each key source of past climate and weather information and each technique of analysis; through each historical period and region of the world; through the major topics of climate and history and core case studies; and finally through the history of climate ideas and science. Using clear, non-technical language, The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History serves as a textbook for students, a reference guide for specialists and an introduction to climate history for scholars and interested readers. Sam White is Associate Professor of Environmental History at the Ohio State University, USA and author of the award-winning book The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (2011), among other publications. He is also co-founder and director of the Climate History Network. Christian Pfister is Professor Emeritus and Senior Researcher at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He has published 11 books and more than 200 articles. He is co-founder of the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH). Franz Mauelshagen is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany. He has published several books, including the award-winning Wunderkammer auf Papier (A Cabinet of Curiosities on Paper, 2011), and more than 50 articles on the history of science, disasters, climate, and the Anthropocene.  1. General Introduction: Weather, Climate, and Human History Part I Reconstruction 2. The Global Climate System 3. Archives of Nature and Archives of Societies 4. Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Documentary Evidence-Overview 5. Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Personal Documentary Sources 6. Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Institutional Sources 7. Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Early Instrumental Observations 8. Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Historical Sources in Glaciology 9. Analysis and Interpretation: Homogenization of Instrumental Data 10. Analysis and Interpretation: Calibration-Verification 11. Analysis and Interpretation: Temperature and Precipitation Indices 12. Analysis and Interpretation: Spatial Climate Field Reconstructions 13. Analysis and Interpretation: Modeling of Past Climates 14. The Denial of Global Warming Part II Historical Climatology: Periods and Regions 15. The Holocene 16. Mediterranean Antiquity 17. China: 2000 Years of Climate Reconstruction from Historical Documents 18. Climate History of Asia (Excluding China) 19. Climate History in Latin America 20. A Multi-Century History of Drought and Wetter Conditions in Africa 21. Recent Developments in Australian Climate History 22. European Middle Ages 23. Early Modern Europe 24. North American Climate History (1500-1800) 25. Climate from 1800 to 1970 in North America and Europe 26. Global Warming (1970-Present) Part III Climate and Society 27. Climate, Weather, Agriculture, and Food 28. Climate, Ecology, and Infectious Human Disease 29. Climate Change and Conflict 30. Narrating Indigenous Histories of Climate Change in the Americas and Pacific 31. Migration and Climate in World History Part IV Case Studies in Climate Reconstruction and Impacts 32. The Climate Downturn of 536-50 33. The 1310s Event 34. The 1780s: Global Climate Anomalies, Floods, Droughts, and Famines 35. A Year Without a Summer, 1816 Part V The History of Climate Ideas and Climate Science 36. Climate as a Scientific Paradigm-Early History of Climatology to 1800 37. Climate and Empire in the Nineteenth Century.- 38. From Climatology to Climate Science in the Twentieth Century.