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"The Earth Transformed" Review - why humans have always been under the weather

29 points| diodorus | 3 years ago |theguardian.com

4 comments

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[+] sklargh|3 years ago|reply
WX/Climate is one of many variables in the human experience. A big one though.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on 1550-1650 lately and I am struck but how much worse everything became during a sustained cooling period. You can’t pin the 30 Years War solely of climate. You can say mass starvation due to repeated crop failures didn’t make it better.

[+] ZunarJ5|3 years ago|reply
Be wary of environmental determinism. It's usually only part of the puzzle.
[+] FrustratedMonky|3 years ago|reply
Maybe the point of the book is the opposite, people have ignored environmental impacts on history for a long time, here are some examples. As you say, it is just one part of the puzzle, then why make a point of being wary of the part of the puzzle that was already ignored. It seems that people for a long time were so wary of it that it was unknown, no need to be even more wary.