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Bezig met laden... The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (editie 2017)door Kyle Harper (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkThe Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire door Kyle Harper (Author)
Non Fiction (4) Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Very good, especially wrt pathogens, plagues, and climate. Listened to via Chirp. ( ) Repeated itself a bit, but overall Harper makes the convincing argument that the fall of the Roman Empire was more because of climate change -- the Roman Climate Optimum ending disrupted the agricultural yield from Egypt to Iberia -- and pandemics, the worst of which killed 30-60% of the empire's population and not just in urban centers. The plagues were also what gave Christianity it's ability to become the state religion and later enabled the Muslim conquest -- the plagues carried by rats or mosquitos did not flourish in dry and hot North Africa. New things: 1) bubonic plague may have evolved from the tuberculosis bacterium, 2) bubonic play carried by black rats which feed on grain infected not only cities, but depopulated farms in the countryside as far north as the Danube, 3) Genghis Khan and Huns may have been turned back by disease rather than military force, 4) Harper likens Justinian marrying Theodora to a sitting US president marrying a Kardashian. this book provides a new perspective on the fall of the Roman Empire focusing on the impacts of disease and climate change. It provides a very detailed account of the various plagues that affected the empire and provides insight into the earliest pandemics affecting mankind. Although tedious at times due to its high level of detail, it is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the later years of the Roman Empire. As a warning, the maps and tables are very difficult to read in the Kindle edition.
The Fate of Rome is the first book of its kind. No other monograph has so infused Late Antiquity with state-of-the-art paleoscience or highlighted the place of climate and disease in the story of Rome’s fall. It is Harper’s third book in seven years and despite being his first environmental history and a synthesis it is ambitious and bold. Harper seeks to revise our understanding of Rome’s slow death. In 293 pages packed with 42 figures, 26 maps, 15 tables and one ‘box’, he covers five hundred years—from the ‘halcyon days’ of the second century to about 650 by which point the empire was ‘reduced to a Byzantine rump state’—and the entirety of the empire. Other matters, from smallpox contact rates in Pakistan to ‘jagged’ Pleistocene climate oscillations, are touched upon as well. A short timeline opens the book and an 18-page Justinianic Plague appendix closes it out. Onderdeel van de uitgeversreeks(en)Prijzen
A sweeping new history of how climate change and disease helped bring down the Roman Empire. Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome's power--a story of nature's triumph over human ambition. Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes readers from Rome's pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted. Harper describes how the Romans were resilient in the face of enormous environmental stress, until the besieged empire could no longer withstand the combined challenges of a "little ice age" and recurrent outbreaks of bubonic plague. A poignant reflection on humanity's intimate relationship with the environment, The Fate of Rome provides a sweeping account of how one of history's greatest civilizations encountered, endured, yet ultimately succumbed to the cumulative burden of nature's violence. The example of Rome is a timely reminder that climate change and germ evolution have shaped the world we inhabit--in ways that are surprising and profound. - Publisher. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)937.06History and Geography Ancient World Italian Peninsula to 476 and adjacent territories to 476 Italian Peninsula to 476 and adjacent territories to 476 Empire 31 B.C.-476 A.D.LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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