Big History

• Geoffrey Parker (Ohio State University), How not to write a global history of the 17th century
• Respondents: Jonathan Holmes (UCL Geography) and Axel Korner (UCL History)

In this lecture, Geoffrey Parker, Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at The Ohio State University, will discuss his prize-winning book Global Crisis: war, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century (Yale University Press, 2013), which traces the consequences for civilizations around the globe of the 17th century's 'Little Ice Age', when perhaps a third of the global human population perished. It will reflect on the challenges of writing 'big history' and what lessons if any can be learned from this spectacular early modern example of the most pressing problem facing the world today, climate change.