Dagomar Degroot offers the first detailed analysis of how a society thrived amid the Little Ice Age, a period of climatic cooling that reached its chilliest point between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The precocious economy, unusual environment, and dynamic intellectual culture of the Dutch Republic in its seventeenth-century Golden Age allowed it to thrive as neighboring societies unraveled in the face of extremes in temperature and precipitation. By tracing the occasionally counterintuitive manifestations of climate change from global to local scales, Degroot finds that the Little Ice Age presented not only challenges for Dutch citizens but also opportunities that they aggressively exploited in conducting commerce, waging war, and creating culture. The overall success of their Republic in coping with climate change offers lessons that we would be wise to heed today, as we confront the growing crisis of global warming.
Author(s): Dagomar Degroot
Series: Studies in Environment and History
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 384
City: Cambridge
Cover
Half-title page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of
Figures and Maps
Acknowledgements
Climate Terms
Note on Abbreviations, Dates, Names, and Translations
List of
Maps
Introduction:
Crisis and Opportunity in a Changing Climate
1 The Little Ice Age
Part One Commerce and Climate
Change
Part
I Preface
2 Reaching Asia in a Stormy, Chilly Climate
3 Sailing, Floating, Riding, and Skating through a Cooler Europe
Part Two Conflict and Climate Change
Part
II Preface
4 Cooling, Warming, and the Wars of Independence, 1564–1648
5 Gales, Winds, and Anglo-Dutch Antagonism, 1652–1688
Part Three Culture and Climate Change
Part
III Preface
6 Tracing and Painting the Little Ice Age
7 Texts, Technologies, and Climate Change
Conclusion:
Lessons from Ice and Gold
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
