Climate Changes, Plagues and Wars
The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century in the Afro-Eurasian Context
Will be published approx. on 31. December 2026
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-3995-5412-1 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
25 colour illustrations, 6 b&w maps
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-5412-1 (9781399554121)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Nicola Di Cosmo is Henry Luce Foundation Professor of East Asian Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, USA). He studies the relations between China and Inner Asia from the first millennium BCE to the early modern period. He has published on the connections between climate, environment, and politics in the history of steppe empires. Among his recent publications are the co-authored book Venice and the Mongols: The Eurasian Exchange that Transformed the Medieval World (Princeton 2026), and the co-edited works Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity: Rome, China, Iran and the Steppe (Cambridge 2018) and Rebel Economies: Warlords. Insurgents, Humanitarians (Lanham 2021). Yoichi Isahaya is Associate Professor at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University. He earned his PhD in Area Studies from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo, in September 2015. His research examines the Mongol empire (1206-1368) within an Afro-Eurasian framework, emphasizing cross-cultural interactions and environmental history. His Japanese monograph, The Mongol Empire in the History of Eurasia (Tokyo 2025), situates the Mongol empire within the broader dynamics of Eurasian history.
Content
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
List of Figures
Introduction: The Crisis of the 14th Century in Afro-Eurasian Context
Nicola Di Cosmo & Yoichi Isahaya
1. Cistercian Monasteries and Rural Society in the Rhine-Moselle-Meuse Region during the Transition to the Little Ice Age
Toshio Ohnuki
2. Cooling in the Lower Amur Basin in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Kazuyuki Nakamura
3. Climate Anomalies and Disasters in China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Nobuhiro Uno & Takeshi Nakatsuka
4. Snowfall in Baghdad: The Mongol Empire on the Threshold of the Little Ice Age
Yoichi Isahaya & Takeshi Nakatsuka
5. Between the Adriatic and the Caspian Sea: Socio-Environmental Perspectives on the Crisis of the Fourteenth Century from the Former Byzantine and Future Ottoman Imperial Spheres
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller
6. Climate and Famines in the Rus' Principalities and the Golden Horde in the Fourteenth Century: A Comparison of Historical Records and Climate Proxies
Ruslan Shakhmatov
7. Looking for Trouble: Non-Textual Indications of Plague Morality Crises in the Late Chinggisid World, c.1330-1400
Philip Slavin
8. Epidemics and the Fourteenth Century's Decline of the Chinggisid States: A Reassessment
Ishayahu Landa
9. The Crisis of 1343 on the Black Sea: Causes, Context and Consequences
Nicola Di Cosmo
10. A Witness of Two Dynasties' Decadence: The Life and Career of Arghun Shah al-Na?iri in the Shadow of 14th Century Crisis
Yihao Qiu
Index
List of Contributors
List of Figures
Introduction: The Crisis of the 14th Century in Afro-Eurasian Context
Nicola Di Cosmo & Yoichi Isahaya
1. Cistercian Monasteries and Rural Society in the Rhine-Moselle-Meuse Region during the Transition to the Little Ice Age
Toshio Ohnuki
2. Cooling in the Lower Amur Basin in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Kazuyuki Nakamura
3. Climate Anomalies and Disasters in China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Nobuhiro Uno & Takeshi Nakatsuka
4. Snowfall in Baghdad: The Mongol Empire on the Threshold of the Little Ice Age
Yoichi Isahaya & Takeshi Nakatsuka
5. Between the Adriatic and the Caspian Sea: Socio-Environmental Perspectives on the Crisis of the Fourteenth Century from the Former Byzantine and Future Ottoman Imperial Spheres
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller
6. Climate and Famines in the Rus' Principalities and the Golden Horde in the Fourteenth Century: A Comparison of Historical Records and Climate Proxies
Ruslan Shakhmatov
7. Looking for Trouble: Non-Textual Indications of Plague Morality Crises in the Late Chinggisid World, c.1330-1400
Philip Slavin
8. Epidemics and the Fourteenth Century's Decline of the Chinggisid States: A Reassessment
Ishayahu Landa
9. The Crisis of 1343 on the Black Sea: Causes, Context and Consequences
Nicola Di Cosmo
10. A Witness of Two Dynasties' Decadence: The Life and Career of Arghun Shah al-Na?iri in the Shadow of 14th Century Crisis
Yihao Qiu
Index