GLOBAL CRISIS WAR, CLIMATE CHANGE AND CATASTROPHE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY GEOFFREY PARKER YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW HAVEN AND LONDONCopyright © 2013 Geoffrey Parker : All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the US, Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers. For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact: US. Office: sales.press@yaleedu wwwyalebooks.com Europe Office: sales @yaleup.couk —wwwyalebooks.couk Set in Arno Pro by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd Printed in Great Britain by T] Intemational Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Parker, Geoffrey, 1943— Global crisis: war, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century/ Geoffrey Parker. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-300-15323-1 (cloth: alkaline paper) 1. History, Modern—17th century.2. Military history—17th century. 3. Civil war—History—17th century. 4. Revolutions—History—17th century. S. Climatic changes—Social aspects—History—17th century. 6. disasters —History— 17th century. L. Title, D247.P37 2012 909'6—de23 2012039448 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10987654321 ‘niaenndetan setlistPARTI THE PLACENTA OF THE CRISIS fae FRENCH PHILOSOPHER AND AUTHOR VOLTAIRE WAS TH mnsT to write about a Global Criss in the seventeenth century. His Essay on the sastoms and character of nations and on the principal fects of history from Charlemingne ‘0 Louis XI, composed in the 1740s for his fiend, the Marquise du Chatelet (who, although an eminent mathematician, found history boring), set the wars and rebel- lions century earlier within a global framework. Thus, after describing the murder of an Ottoman sultan in 1648, Voltaire immediately noted: ‘This unfortunate time for Ibrahim was unfortunate for all monarchs. ‘The Holy Roman Empire was unsettled by the famous Thirty Year’ Wer. Civil war devastated France and forced the mother of Louis XIV to flee with her children fiom her capital. In London, Chasles 1 was condemned to death by his own subjects, Philip Vj king of Spain, having lost almosalfhispossessionsin Asia, also lost Portugal Voltaire went on to consider the cateers of Cromwell in England, Li Zicheng in Chin, Aurangzeb in India, and others who had seized power by force, concluding. thatthe mid-seventeenth century had been 'a period of usurpations almost ffom one end of the world to the other* ‘Voltaire’ Essay repeatedly stressed the global dimension ofthe crisis: ‘In the flood ‘of revolutions which we have seen from one end of the universe to the other, a fatal sequence of events seems to have dragged people into them, just as winds move the sand and the waves. ‘The developments in Japan offer another example Eventually, fearing that the marquise might stil find his 174 chapters and 800 pages of ‘examples’ boring, he delivered his analysis in a single sentence: “Three things exercise constant influence over the minds of men: climate, government and religion’ Taken together, Voltaire proclaimed, they offer ‘the only way to explain the ‘enigma of this world: Two decades later, Voltaire re-read his Essay and added a number of Remarks, including a fourth ‘thing’ that, he now believed, could ‘recon- cile what was irreconcilable and explain what is inexplicable’ in human history: changes in population size? Veltaite’ global vision has attracted few imitators. Although many subsequent historians have provided accounts filled with facts on ‘government and religion’ in the seventeenth century, until very reeently few noted population trends and