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Dagomar Degroot offers the first detailed analysis of how a society thrived amid the Little Ice Age, a period of climatic cooling that reached its chilliest point between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The precocious economy, unusual environment, and dynamic intellectual culture of the Dutch Republic in its seventeenth-century Golden Age allowed it to thrive as neighboring societies unraveled in the face of extremes in temperature and precipitation. By tracing the occasionally counterintuitive manifestations of climate change from global to local scales, Degroot finds that the Little Ice Age presented not only challenges for Dutch citizens but also opportunities that they aggressively exploited in conducting commerce, waging war, and creating culture. The overall success of their Republic in coping with climate change offers lessons that we would be wise to heed today, as we confront the growing crisis of global warming.
List of contents
Introduction: crisis and opportunity in a changing climate; 1. The Little Ice Age; Part I. Commerce and Climate Change: Part I. Preface; 2. Reaching Asia in a stormy, chilly climate; 3. Sailing, floating, riding, and skating through a cooler Europe; Part II. Conflict and Climate Change: Part II. Preface; 4. Cooling, warming, and the wars of independence, 1564-1648; 5. Gales, winds, and Anglo-Dutch antagonism, 1652-88; Part III. Culture and Climate Change: Part III. Preface; 6. Tracing and painting the Little Ice Age; 7. Texts, technologies, and climate change; Conclusion: lessons from ice and gold; Appendices.
About the author
Dagomar Degroot is an Assistant Professor of environmental history at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. He is the co-founder of the Climate History Network, an organization of more than 200 academics in the sciences and humanities.
Summary
The first detailed analysis of how climate change influenced the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, from the middle of the sixteenth century to the early decades of the eighteenth century. For environmental historians, scholars of Dutch history, and anyone interested in climate change.
Report
'Degroot offers surprising insights into links between weather variations during the chilliest phase of the Little Ice Age and the Dutch Golden Age by exploring how merchants, soldiers and investors exploited new opportunities resulting from to climate change. The book is well-researched and exciting to read.' Christian Pfister, Universität Bern, Switzerland
