Description
How the story of Noah's Flood was central to the development of a global environmental consciousness in early modern Europe.
Winner, Morris D. Forkosch Prize, Journal of the History of Ideas
Many centuries before the emergence of the scientific consensus on climate change, people began to imagine the existence of a global environment: a natural system capable of changing humans and of being changed by them. In After the Flood, Lydia Barnett traces the history of this idea back to the early modern period, when the Scientific Revolution, the Reformations, the Little Ice Age, and the overseas expansion of European empire, religion, and commerce gave rise to new ideas about nature, humanity, and their intersecting histories.
Recovering a forgotten episode in the history of environmental thought, Barnett brings to light the crucial role of religious faith and conflict in the emergence of a global environmental consciousness. Following Noah's Flood as a popular topic of debate through long-distance networks of knowledge from the late sixteenth through the early eighteenth centuries, Barnett reveals how early modern earth and environmental sciences were shaped by gender, evangelism, empire, race, and nation.
How the story of Noah's Flood was central to the development of a global environmental consciousness in early modern Europe.
About the Author
Lydia Barnett is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University.
Reviews
Lydia Barnett's After the Flood is a deeply researched, extensively documented, and stimulating book.
-Intellectual History Review
Awards
Winner of Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the Best Book in Intellectual History 2019 (United States). Short-listed for Kenshur Prize 2020 (United States).
Book Information
ISBN 9781421429519
Author Lydia Barnett
Format Hardback
Page Count 264
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 24mm