The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950 1072

Ellenblum, Ronnie

ISBN 10: 1107023351 / ISBN 13: 9781107023352

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2012

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950 1072
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1107023351
• ISBN 13: 9781107023352
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Like New
• Book Type: book

About this title

Synopsis

As a 'Medieval Warm Period' prevailed in Western Europe during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the eastern Mediterranean region, from the Nile to the Oxus, was suffering from a series of climatic disasters which led to the decline of some of the most important civilisations and cultural centres of the time. This provocative study argues that many well-documented but apparently disparate events – such as recurrent drought and famine in Egypt; mass migrations in the steppes of central Asia; and the decline in population in urban centres such as Baghdad and Constantinople – are connected and should be understood within the broad context of climate change. Drawing on a wealth of textual and archaeological evidence, Ronnie Ellenblum explores the impact of climatic and ecological change across the eastern Mediterranean in this period, to offer a new perspective on why this was a turning point in the history of the Islamic world.

About the Author

Ronnie Ellenblum is an Associate Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a life member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He is the author of the prize-winning Crusader Castles and Modern Histories (Cambridge, 2007). His first book, Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1998), has become a standard work for the study of Crusader Geographies.