Impacts of Ecological Circumstances on Historical Events: Selected Cases from the Ottoman History
Climatology is among the non-human terms of
it’s effect upon history has not been
acknowledged until recently. Ottoman history as a case study is not an
exception. Today, any self respecting historian can not deny the impact of
climate upon any of his/her research area. However we have yet to see hardly
any convincing historical investigation upon this subject.
My lecture under the general theme of “Climate, Society and Geographic Environment” will be
based upon the review of rather scattered literature. It is going to consists
of three parts: 1) Introduction: Climatology in general, 2) Climate and its
effect upon Ottoman empire: Review of literature 3) Conclusion and thoughts
about further investigations.
1) Introduction: Climatology in general: The effect
of climate upon people such as an increase in the number of disease- causing organisms, human land use,… can
be learned not only by looking at archival documents but also by looking at
indirect evidences. However we must confess that we are a little bit far away
from having an undisputed methodology.
2) Climate and its effect upon Ottoman empire:
Review of literature: Although our title clearly indicates the era we
concentrate upon, I see it necessary to start with the Byzantine history. It is
well known that searching byzantine texts for climatology is quite new. In
those studies researches scanned original text for severe weather conditions.
As it can easily be guessed, those studies have to base upon narrative and
consequently require interpretation. Those sources can be divided into 4
categories: a) Narrative histories, b) Chronologies, c) Church historians and
d) Biographies. The main part of my lecture unfortunately is little bit
underexplored. Therefore I will be mainly talking about an apparent
connection between celali uprising and
the well known “little ice age”.
3) Conclusion and thoughts
about further investigations
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