This anthology brings together important classical works and contemporary scholarship for a complete anthropological evaluation of the relationship between culture and climate change. The essays cover a range of topics, including environmental determinism, climatic events as social catalysts, and climatic disasters.

Acknowledgments to Sources viii About the Editor x Preface xi Acknowledgments xiv Introduction: The Anthropology of Climate Change Six Millennia of Study of the Relationship between Climate and Society 1Michael R. Dove Part I Continuities 37Climate Theory 1 Airs, Waters, Places 41Hippocrates 2 On the Laws in Their Relation to the Nature of the Climate 47Charles de Secondat Montesquieu Beyond the Greco-Roman Tradition 3 The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History 55Ibn Khaldûn 4 The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine 67Francis Zimmermann Ethno-climatology Copyrighted Material 5 Concerning Weather Signs 83Theophrastus 6 Gruff Boreas, Deadly Calms: A Medical Perspective on Winds and the Victorians 87Vladimir Jankoviæ Part II Societal and Environmental Change 103Environmental Determinism 7 Nature, Rise, and Spread of Civilization 107Friedrich Ratzel 8 Environment and Culture in the Amazon Basin: An Appraisal of the Theory of Environmental Determinism 115Betty J. Meggers Climate Change and Societal Collapse 9 Management for Extinction in Norse Greenland 131Thomas H. McGovern 10 What Drives Societal Collapse? 151Harvey Weiss and Raymond Bradley Climatic Events as Social Crucibles 11 Natural Disaster and Political Crisis in a Polynesian Society: An Exploration of Operational Research 157James Spillius 12 Drought as a “Revelatory Crisis”: An Exploration of Shifting Entitlements and Hierarchies in the Kalahari, Botswana 168Jacqueline S. Solway Part III Vulnerability and Control 187Culture and Control of Climate 13 Rain-Shrines of the Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia 191Elizabeth Colson 14 El Niño, Early Peruvian Civilization, and Human Agency: Some Thoughts from the Lurin Valley 201Richard L. Burger Climatic Disasters and Social Marginalization 15 Katrina: The Disaster and its Doubles 217Nancy Scheper-Hughes 16 “Nature”, “Culture” and Disasters: Floods and Gender in Bangladesh 223Rosalind Shaw Part IV Knowledge and its Circulation 235Emic Views of Climatic Perturbation/Disaster 17 Typhoons on Yap 239David M. Schneider 18 The Politics of Place: Inhabiting and Defending Glacier Hazard Zones in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca 247Mark Carey Co-production of Knowledge in Climatic and Social Histories 19 Melting Glaciers and Emerging Histories in the Saint Elias Mountains 261Julie Cruikshank 20 The Making and Unmaking of Rains and Reigns 276Todd Sanders “Friction” in the Global Circulation of Climate Knowledge 21 Transnational Locals: Brazilian Experiences of the Climate Regime 301Myanna Lahsen 22 Channeling Globality: The 1997–98 El Niño Climate Event in Peru 315Kenneth Broad and Ben Orlove Index 335

Climate perturbation and change is a topic of intense interest but the current conversation rarely moves beyond an examination of the contemporary situation. In doing so, it ignores insights from millennia of scholarly attention to the relationship between climate and society and doesn’t take full advantage of anthropological work on the subject. This timely anthology brings together the most important classical works and contemporary scholarship for a complete historical anthropological evaluation of the relationship between culture and climate change. The essays in this volume study the historic and prehistoric records of human impact from and response to prior periods of climatic perturbation and change; the impact and response  at the local level; the impact on global debates  from North–South post-colonial histories; and the social dimensions of  climate science.  They encompass such topics as  environmental determinism, climatic events as social catalysts, climatic disasters and societal collapse, and the construction and circulation of knowledge about climate.  An ideal text for courses in climate change, human/cultural ecology, environmental anthropology and archaeology, disaster studies, science and technology studies, history of science, and environmental sciences, this book not only informs current debates but also demonstrates that  the relationship between climate and society has preoccupied the human mind for as long as records have been kept.

"...a timely contribution to the discourse in anthropology for understanding the various impacts of global climate change from multiple perspectives and contexts...the pairing of relevant and related works under specific thematic areas is useful for class reading assignments and encouraging focused comparative debates." - Sandra Moore, for Anthropology Book Forum, Anthropology News“I believe that Dove’s book would serve as an excellent supplementary textbook for subjects on the anthropology of climate change because of its historical orientation.”  (The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 6 April 2015) “…strengthened by Dove’s excellent introduction, in which he outlines key themes and situates each work Dove has assembled a collection that demonstrates how anthropology can enhance our understanding of the relationship between climate and society.’  (Anthem EnviroExperts Review, 1 October 2014)

“In this brilliantly devised compilation, Michael Dove takes the long view, showing shifting perspectives on climate and culture from Hippocrates and Vedic medicine to catastrophic global change. This is a refreshingly diverse contribution at an urgent time.”               Paul Robbins, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison “Fundamentally, climate change is an anthropological problem. In this wonderful book, Michael Dove introduces readers to the rich diversity of anthropological perspectives on climate and society.” J. Stephen Lansing, University of Arizona “An innovative and instructive collection of studies on social and climate change, this book is a much needed addition to the ongoing work on how to think about climate change. The critical clarity that the papers in this collection afford should help readers to think beyond the assertions of doom or the skeptical denials that characterize nearly all work on climate – instead, the book, especially its introduction by Dove, is an invitation to think differently: an unusual luxury that gladdens the spirit.” Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan