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:
“If often he was wrong and at times absurd,
To us he is no more a person
Now but a whole climate of opinion.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“We black women must forgive black men for not protecting us against slavery, racism, white men, our confusion, their doubts. And black men must forgive black women for our own sometimes dubious choices, divided loyalties, and lack of belief in their possibilities. Only when our sons and our daughters know that forgiveness is real, existent, and that those who love them practice it, can they form bonds as men and women that really can save and change our community.”
—Marita Golden, educator, author. Saving Our Sons, p. 188, Doubleday (1995)