Climate Change
The General Crisis overlaps fairly neatly with the so-called Little Ice Age which some authorities locate in the 17th century. Of particular interest is the overlap with the Maunder Minimum. Across the Northern Hemisphere, the mid-17th century experienced almost unprecedented death rates. Parker suggests that environmental factors may have been in part to blame, especially global cooling. A global phenomenon of this sort would go a long way towards explaining the seemingly universal state of warfare and decline in the mid 17th century.
Read more about this topic: The General Crisis
Famous quotes containing the words climate and/or change:
“Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice. The influence of climate upon the bodily functions ... extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Wisdom is not just knowing fundamental truths, if these are unconnected with the guidance of life or with a perspective on its meaning. If the deep truths physicists describe about the origin and functioning of the universe have little practical import and do not change our picture of the meaning of the universe and our place within it, then knowing them would not count as wisdom.”
—Robert Nozick (b. 1938)