The empire of climate : a history of an idea
David N. Livingstone
Bok · Engelsk · 2024
| Omfang | x, 534 sider : illustrasjoner, kart
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| Opplysninger | "As the looming consequences of climate change increasingly dominate our visions of the future, media coverage and public discourse often focus on how an altered climate will inevitably-and unevenly-reshape human life across the globe. Amid predictions of mass displacement, food shortages, conflict over resources, and widespread health problems, many people are newly reckoning with a very old idea: that the conditions of our climate will inexorably determine our future. This book examines the intellectual architecture of the once widely trafficked belief that climate exerts an ineluctable power over the human species, shaping everything from the wealth of nations to human health, from the outbreak of hostilities to the evolution of the brain and mental wellbeing. The book is organized around four themes: health, wealth, war, and mind. Each section opens with contemporary anxieties about the influence of an altered climate, before tracing the history of these fixations back to much earlier pronouncements on climate's influence. Livingstone illustrates how the specter of climatic influence has been used variously to explain, interpret, and redraw the world-and how it played a significant role in the development and justification of some of history's most destructive worldviews. He cites examples where climate has been critically implicated: in the politics of imperial control, labor power, and race relations; to explain industrial development, economic breakdown, and market performance; as a marker for national character and cultural collapse; as an explanation for past warfare and civil conflict today; and as a critical factor in psychological disorders, patterns of suicide, and the prevalence of acute psychosis. The book overall traces a powerful set of ideas that has spanned human history, and that continue to shape the modern world in various forms to this day"--
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| ISBN | 9780691236704
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