Anthropology of Climate Change

Michael R. Dove is the Margaret K. Musser Professor of Social Ecology in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Professor in the Department of Anthropology,  Director of the Tropical resources Institute, and Curator of Anthropology at the Peabody Museum, Yale University.

"...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)

• Acknowledgments to Sources viiiAbout the Editor xPreface xiAcknowledgments xivIntroduction: The Anthropology of Climate Change Six Millennia of Study of the Relationship between Climate and Society 1Michael R. DovePart I Continuities 37Climate Theory1 Airs, Waters, Places 41Hippocrates2 On the Laws in Their Relation to the Nature of the Climate 47Charles de Secondat Montesquieu Beyond the Greco-Roman Tradition3 The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History 55Ibn Khaldûn4 The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine 67Francis Zimmermann Ethno-climatology Copyrighted Material5 Concerning Weather Signs 83Theophrastus6 Gruff Boreas, Deadly Calms: A Medical Perspective on Winds and the Victorians 87Vladimir JankoviæPart II Societal and Environmental Change 103Environmental Determinism7 Nature, Rise, and Spread of Civilization 107Friedrich Ratzel8 Environment and Culture in the Amazon Basin: An Appraisal of the Theory of Environmental Determinism 115Betty J. Meggers Climate Change and Societal Collapse9 Management for Extinction in Norse Greenland 131Thomas H. McGovern10 What Drives Societal Collapse? 151Harvey Weiss and Raymond Bradley Climatic Events as Social Crucibles11 Natural Disaster and Political Crisis in a Polynesian Society: An Exploration of Operational Research 157James Spillius12 Drought as a “Revelatory Crisis”: An Exploration of Shifting Entitlements and Hierarchies in the Kalahari, Botswana 168Jacqueline S. SolwayPart III Vulnerability and Control 187Culture and Control of Climate13 Rain-Shrines of the Plateau Tonga of Northern Rhodesia 191Elizabeth Colson14 El Niño, Early Peruvian Civilization, and Human Agency: Some Thoughts from the Lurin Valley 201Richard L. Burger Climatic Disasters and Social Marginalization15 Katrina: The Disaster and its Doubles 217Nancy Scheper-Hughes16 “Nature”, “Culture” and Disasters: Floods and Gender in Bangladesh 223Rosalind ShawPart IV Knowledge and its Circulation 235Emic Views of Climatic Perturbation/Disaster17 Typhoons on Yap 239David M. Schneider18 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 Histories19 Melting Glaciers and Emerging Histories in the Saint Elias Mountains 261Julie Cruikshank20 The Making and Unmaking of Rains and Reigns 276Todd Sanders “Friction” in the Global Circulation of Climate Knowledge21 Transnational Locals: Brazilian Experiences of the Climate Regime 301Myanna Lahsen22 Channeling Globality: The 1997–98 El Niño Climate Event in Peru 315Kenneth Broad and Ben OrloveIndex 335