Climate and History News

Alan Mikhail, "What the World Says: The Ottoman Empire, Interspecies Rape, and Climate in the Little Ice Age" (Critical Inquiry)

October 6, 2022

Abstract During the Little Ice Age of the early modern centuries, close to a third of the globe’s population perished. Because this period serves as the most recent...

Deborah Coen, "The heat wave could force Europeans to rethink flawed, centuries-old ideas" (Washington Post)

July 21, 2022

As Britain and France grapple with sweltering temperatures — possibly even record temperatures — for which their countries are ill-equipped, their privileged residents are...

Paul Erdkamp, Joseph G. Manning, Koenraad Verboven, eds., “Climate Change and Ancient Societies in Europe and the Near East: Diversity in Collapse and Resilience,” (Palgrave MacMillan)

November 9, 2021

Book Abstract: Climate change over the past thousands of years is undeniable, but debate has arisen about its impact on past human societies. This book explores the link...

Joseph R. McConnell, et al., "Extreme climate after massive eruption of Alaska’s Okmok volcano in 43 BCE and effects on the late Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Kingdom," PNAS

July 7, 2020

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/27/15443.full.pdf Joseph R. McConnell, Michael Sigl, Gill Plunkett, Andrea Burke, Woon Mi Kim, Christoph C. Raible, Andrew I. Wilson,...

NSF grant for research into climate and society links

September 28, 2018

A Yale-led project examining the link between explosive volcanic eruptions and the annual Nile river summer flooding in antiquity has received an award from the National...

Deborah Coen, “Climate in Motion: Science, Empire, and the Problem of Scale” (Chicago, 2018)

July 16, 2018

Today, predicting the impact of human activities on the earth’s climate hinges on tracking interactions among phenomena of radically different dimensions, from the molecular...

April 2018 Lecture Series, “Paleoclimate, Environment, History”

February 7, 2018

In April 2018, the Yale Nile Initiative Lecture Series will host a four-part lecture series, “Paleoclimate, Environment, History.” The speaker line-up includes: April 9:...

Joseph Manning, et al, “Volcanic suppression of Nile summer flooding triggers revolt and constrains interstate conflict in ancient Egypt,” Nature Communications (October 2017)

October 17, 2017

Joseph G. Manning, Francis Ludlow, Alexander R. Stine, William R. Boos, Michael Sigl, & Jennifer R. Marlon, “Volcanic suppression of Nile summer flooding triggers revolt...

Yale Excavation in Syria Continues to Reveal Secrets of World’s Earliest Cities

June 6, 2017

In the 1970s Yale archaeologist Harvey Weiss began excavating an ancient city in present day Syria that would reveal critical insights into the world’s first cities. Although...

Alan Mikhail, "Under Osman's Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History," (Chicago, 2017)

March 20, 2017

Osman, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, had a dream in which a tree sprouted from his navel. As the tree grew, its shade covered the earth; as Osman’s empire grew, it, too...

Ben Kiernan, "Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present" (Oxford, 2017)

March 16, 2017

For many Westerners, the name Vietnam evokes images of a bloody televised American war that generated a firestorm of protest and brought conflict into their living rooms. In...

Joanna Radin and Emma Kowal, eds. "Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World" (MIT 2017)

March 12, 2017

As the planet warms and the polar ice caps melt, naturally occurring cold is a resource of growing scarcity. At the same time, energy-intensive cooling technologies are...

Alan Mikhail, "Climate and the Chronology of Iranian History," Iranian Studies (2016)

December 8, 2016

Alan Mikhail, “Climate and the Chronology of Iranian History,” Iranian Studies Vol. 49: 6 (2016). This article offers a chronology of climate events in Iran over the last...

Alan Mikhail wins Leopold-Hidy Prize for Best Article in Environmental History

April 14, 2016

Professor Alan Mikhail recently received the Leopold-Hidy Prize for Best Article in Environmental History for his essay, “Ottoman Iceland: A Climate History” (April 2015...

Alan Mikhail, "Enlightenment Anthropocene," (Eighteenth Century Studies, Winter 2016)

February 15, 2016

Alan Mikhail, “Enlightenment Anthropocene,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 49.2 (2016): 211-231. Abstract: This article offers an analysis of the emergence, use, and current...

Climate Lectures & Colloquium

Thursday, November 7, 2019 - 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM - Whitney Humanities Center

"Usable Climate Science and the Uses of History, An Interdisciplinary Workshop at Yale University"

Friday, October 25, 2019 - 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM - 230 Prospect Street, Room 101

Ana Mariella Bacigalupo (SUNY Buffalo)

"The Subversive Politics of Sentient Places: Climate Change, Collective Ethics, and Environmental Justice in Peru (Yale Agrarian Studies)"

Monday, October 21, 2019 - 4:00 PM - TBA

Henry Lamb (Aberystwyth University)

"Lake Tana, the Blue Nile and beyond: paleoenvironments of Ethiopia (Yale Nile Initiative)"

Friday, October 4, 2019 - 4:00 PM - Sterling Chemistry Laboratory, Room 201

Elfatih Eltahir (MIT)

"Hydrology and Climate of the Nile Basin: Past, Present, and Future (Yale Nile Initiative)"

Friday, March 1, 2019 - 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM - 230 Prospect Street, Room 101

"Mikael Wolfe (Stanford University), “A Revolution is a Force More Powerful than Nature’: The Impact of Hurricane Flora of 1963 on the Agrarian Character of the Cuban Revolution” (Yale Agrarian Studies)"

Friday, January 25, 2019 - 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM - 230 Prospect Street, Room 101

"Jason W. Moore (Binghamton University), “Climate Change and Civilizational Crisis, 376-2018: A Geohistorical Interpretation” (Yale Agrarian Studies)"

Monday, October 8, 2018 - 4:00 PM - Kline Geology Lab (KGL) Auditorium

Neal Spencer, British Museum.

"Neal Spencer, (British Museum), “The Pharaonic State, Nubia & the Nile: An Inhabitants’ Perspective from Amara West,” (The Yale Nile Initiative Lecture Series)"

Thursday, September 27, 2018 - 4:30 PM - Henry R. Luce Hall (LUCE ), 202

Arupjyoti Saikia, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati

"Arupjyoti Saikia, (Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati), “The Unruly Floodplains, the British Empire and an Environmental History of the Brahmaputra” (South Asian Studies Council Colloquium)"

Monday, September 24, 2018 - 09/24/2018 - Kline Geology Laboratory, 210 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT 06511

Joe McConnell, Desert Research Institute, Nevada System of Higher Education, Reno

"Ancient History in Greenland Ice (Yale Nile Initiative Lecture Series)"

Monday, September 24, 2018 - 12:00 PM - Luce Hall 202

Lise Fernanda Sedrez, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

"Lise Fernanda Sedrez (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), “The gardens of Babilonia Hill - Climate challenges and community initiatives in Rio de Janeiro 1985-2015” (CLAIS Lunchtime Speaker Series)"