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Historical Disaster Experiences

Towards a Comparative and Transcultural History of Disasters Across Asia and Europe

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Editors:
  1. Gerrit Jasper Schenk

    1. Fachgebiet Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Institut für Geschichte, Darmstadt, Germany

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  • Presents the first study on historical disaster experiences across Europe, the Near East and Asia in pre-industrial societies
  • Focuses on long-term processes for dealing with natural disasters and on cultural learning
  • Offers transcultural perspectives on historical disaster research

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
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  3. Materiality of Disasters: Natural Impact, Social Experience

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 61-61
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    2. Several Natural Disasters in the Middle East (at the Beginning of the Eleventh Century) and Their Consequences

      • Juliette Rassi
      Pages 63-79

    3. Fanāʾ and Fasād: Perceptions and Concepts of Crises and Disasters in Fourteenth-Century Egypt

      • Sarah Büssow-Schmitz
      Pages 81-91

    4. The Black Death and the Human Impact on the Environment

      • Stuart Borsch
      Pages 93-106

    5. The Day the Sun Turned Blue: A Volcanic Eruption in the Early 1460s and Its Possible Climatic Impact—A Natural Disaster Perceived Globally in the Late Middle Ages?

      • Martin Bauch
      Pages 107-138

    6. Cultural Implications of Natural Disasters: Historical Reports of the Volcano Eruption of July, 1256 CE

      • George Saliba
      Pages 139-154

    7. When Europe Was Burning: The Multi-season Mega-drought of 1540 and Arsonist Paranoia

      • Christian Pfister
      Pages 155-185
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Keywords

About this book

Historical disaster research is still a young field. This book discusses the experiences of natural disasters in different cultures, from Europe across the Near East to Asia. It focuses on the pre-industrial era and on the question of similarities, differences and transcultural dynamics in the cultural handling of natural disasters. Which long-lasting cultural patterns of perception, interpretation and handling of disasters can be determined? Have specific types of disasters changed the affected societies? What have people learned from disasters and what not? What adaptation and coping strategies existed? Which natural, societal and economic parameters play a part? The book not only reveals the historical depth of present practices, but also reveals possible comparisons that show globalization processes, entanglements and exchanges of ideas and practices in pre-modern times.

Reviews

“This collection of 20 essays covers a variety of disasters … across a wide expanse of space and time, ranging from the 11th-century Middle East to 16th-century Europe and 20th-century India and Nepal. … The essays are generally of high quality, and several are excellent. Editor Schenk offers a useful introductory overview of the development of historical interest in disasters and key questions that have shaped the field in recent decades … . Summing Up: Recommended, Graduate and research libraries.” (M. Mulcahy, Choice, Vol. 55 (3), November, 2017)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Fachgebiet Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Institut für Geschichte, Darmstadt, Germany

    Gerrit Jasper Schenk

About the editor

Gerrit Jasper Schenk (Dr. phil.) is professor of medieval history at Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany). He has taught at the universities of Heidelberg, Stuttgart and Essen and has held fellowships from the Gerda Henkel Foundation and the German Historical Institutes (Rome, Paris). He is an associated member of the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” (University of Heidelberg). His main research interests are rituals, ceremonies, pilgrimage, environmental history, historical disaster research and urban history. Most recently he has coedited books on Historical Disasters in Context (2012), Krisengeschichte(n) (2013), Disaster as Image (2014) and Mensch. Natur. Katastrophe. Von Atlantis bis heute (2014).

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