How climate change ushered in the collapse of one of history’s
mighty empires In 1644, after close to three centuries of relative
stability and prosperity, the Ming dynasty collapsed. Many
historians attribute its demise to the Manchu invasion of China,
but the truth is far more profound. The Price of Collapse provides
an entirely new approach to the economic and social history of
China, exploring how global climate crisis spelled the end of Ming
rule. The mid-seventeenth century witnessed the deadliest phase of
the Little Ice Age, when temperatures and rainfall plunged and
world economies buckled. Timothy Brook draws on the history of
grain prices to paint a gripping portrait of the final tumultuous
years of a once-great dynasty. He explores how global trade
networks that increasingly moved silver into China may have
affected prices and describes the daily struggle to survive amid
grain shortages and famine. By the early 1640s, as the subjects of
the Ming found themselves caught in a deadly combination of cold
and drought that defied all attempts to stave off disaster, the
Ming price regime collapsed, and with it the Ming political regime.
A masterful work of scholarship, The Price of Collapse reconstructs
the experience of ordinary people under the immense pressure of
unaffordable prices as their country slid from prosperity to
calamity and shows how the market mediated the relationship between
an empire and the climate that turned against it.
General
| Imprint: |
Princeton University Press
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Release date: |
November 2023 |
| Authors: |
Timothy Brook
|
| Dimensions: |
235 x 156mm (L x W) |
| Format: |
Hardcover
|
| Pages: |
256 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-0-691-25040-3 |
| Categories: |
Books
Promotions
|
| LSN: |
0-691-25040-5 |
| Barcode: |
9780691250403 |
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