The Ragged Edge Radio ....with Russ Dizdar

The acclaimed historian demonstrates a link between climate change and social unrest across the globeduring the mid-17th century.Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides, government collapses—the calamities of the midseventeenth century were unprecedented in both frequency and severity. The effects of what historians callthe "General Crisis" extended from England to Japan and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa andthe Americas.In this meticulously researched volume, historian Geoffrey Parker presents the firsthand testimony of menand women who experienced the many political, economic, and social crises that occurred between 1618 tothe late 1680s. He also incorporates the scientific evidence of climate change during this period into thenarrative, offering a strikingly new understanding of the General Crisis.Changes in weather patterns, especially longer winters and cooler and wetter summers, disrupted growingseasons and destroyed harvests. This in turn brought hunger, malnutrition,