McMichael, Anthony J. (Author)
When we think of "climate change," we think of man-made global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to the climate's vicissitudes. Anthony J. McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and apioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal person to tell this story.Climate Change and the Health of Nations shows how the natural environment has vast direct and indirect repercussions for human health and welfare. McMichael takes us on a tour of human history through the lens of major transformations in climate. From the very beginning of our species some fivemillion years ago, human biology has evolved in response to cooling temperatures, new food sources, and changing geography. As societies began to form, they too adapted in relation to their environments, most notably with the development of agriculture eleven thousand years ago. Agriculturalcivilization was a Faustian bargain, however: the prosperity and comfort that an agrarian society provides relies on the assumption that the environment will largely remain stable. Indeed, for agriculture to succeed, environmental conditions must be just right, which McMichael refers to as the"Goldilocks phenomenon." Global warming is disrupting this balance, just as other climate-related upheavals have tested human societies throughout history. As McMichael shows, the break-up of the Roman Empire, the bubonic Plague of Justinian, and the mysterious collapse of Mayan civilization allhave roots in climate change.Why devote so much analysis to the past, when the daunting future of climate change is already here? Because the story of mankind�s previous survival in the face of an unpredictable and unstable climate, and of the terrible toll that climate change can take, could not be more important as we facethe realities of a warming planet. This sweeping magnum opus is not only a rigorous, innovative, and fascinating exploration of how the climate affects the human condition, but also an urgent call to recognize our species' utter reliance on the earth as it is.
...MoreReview Cristian Timmermann (2018) Review of "Climate Change and the Health of Nations: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 155-157).
Book
Benjamin Lieberman;
Elizabeth Gordon;
(2018)
Climate Change in Human History: Prehistory to the Present
(/isis/citation/CBB966780951/)
Book
McNeill, John R.;
Peter Engelke;
(2016)
The great acceleration: An environmental history of the anthropocene since 1945
(/isis/citation/CBB150318381/)
Article
Robin, Libby;
(2013)
Histories for Changing Times: Entering the Anthropocene?
(/isis/citation/CBB001201439/)
Chapter
Maddalena Moglia;
(2022)
Il signore e la carestia: Parma 1258-1259
(/isis/citation/CBB465894835/)
Chapter
Laura Bertoni;
(2022)
Scrivere la carestia: le registrazioni annonarie a Pavia. Anni 1258-1260
(/isis/citation/CBB684827606/)
Book
Ellen E. Wohl;
(2015)
Transient Landscapes: Insights on a Changing Planet
(/isis/citation/CBB297435545/)
Chapter
Alberto Luongo;
(2022)
Comune, Popolo e crisi alimentari a Perugia (1257-1260)
(/isis/citation/CBB350762362/)
Article
Alexander Aisher;
Thomas Widlok;
Jean-Baptiste Pettier;
Lorena Córdoba;
Paul J. Lane;
Lecain, Timothy James;
Michael Bollig;
Gänger, Stefanie;
(October 2019)
Forum: Commodifying the “Wild”: Anxiety, Ecology and Authenticity in the Late Modern Era
(/isis/citation/CBB319730977/)
Book
Nicole Boivin;
Rémy Crassard;
Michael Petraglia;
(2017)
Human Dispersal and Species Movement: From Prehistory to the Present
(/isis/citation/CBB387991036/)
Book
Dipesh Chakrabarty;
(2021)
The Climate of History in a Planetary Age
(/isis/citation/CBB369796069/)
Book
Brooke, John L.;
(2014)
Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey
(/isis/citation/CBB001422667/)
Article
Myron P. Gutmann;
(2018)
Beyond Social Science History: Population and Environment in the US Great Plains
(/isis/citation/CBB780470005/)
Book
Stephen J. Pyne;
(2022)
The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next
(/isis/citation/CBB244686914/)
Book
Jeremy Davies;
(2016)
The Birth of the Anthropocene
(/isis/citation/CBB198861990/)
Book
Kyle Harper;
Benoît Rossignol;
(2019)
Comment l'Empire romain s'est effondré - Le climat, les maladies et la chute de Rome
(/isis/citation/CBB967810727/)
Book
Anna Domizia Bianco;
(2007)
Aqua ducta, aqua distribuita. La gestione delle risorse idriche in età romana
(/isis/citation/CBB876292839/)
Book
Florence Bretelle-Establet;
Marie Gaille;
Mehrnaz Katouzian-Safadi;
(2019)
Making Sense of Health, Disease, and the Environment in Cross-Cultural History: The Arabic-Islamic World, China, Europe, and North America
(/isis/citation/CBB064731069/)
Book
Wood, Gillen D'Arcy;
(2014)
Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World
(/isis/citation/CBB001422289/)
Article
DeWitte, Sharon;
(2013)
Between Famine and Death: England on the Eve of the Black Death---Evidence from Paleoepidemiology and Manorial Accounts
(/isis/citation/CBB001212802/)
Article
Harman, Oren Solomon;
(2007)
Powerful Intuitions: Re-reading Nature versus Nurture with Charles Darwin and Clifford Geertz
(/isis/citation/CBB000740748/)
Be the first to comment!