Table of Contents

Part I. The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: 1. Presenting the events; 2. Deconstructing a 'collapse'; 3. 950–1027 - an impending disaster; Part II. Regional Domino Effects in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1027–60 AD: 4. The collapse of Iran; 5. The fall of Baghdād; 6. A crumbling empire: the Pechenegs and the decimation of Byzantium; 7. Egypt and its provinces, 1050s–1070s; Part III. Cities and Minorities: 8. Jerusalem and the decline of classical cities; 9. Water supply, declining cities and deserted villages; 10. Food crises and accelerated Islamization; 11. Reflections.

Promotional Information

A provocative study of the devastating impact of climate change across the eastern Mediterranean in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

About the Author

Ronnie Ellenblum is an Associate Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a life member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He is the author of the prize-winning Crusader Castles and Modern Histories (Cambridge, 2007). His first book, Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1998), has become a standard work for the study of Crusader Geographies.

Reviews

'We have long been familiar with the famines that struck Egypt in the mid-1000s, but Ellenblum is the first to show how these are part of a broad regional pattern. This comprehensive and clearly argued book advances our understanding of the complex political, social, and economic processes of the late tenth and eleventh century in SW Asia and, more broadly, our capacity to link these processes to those underway in other parts of Eurasia.' Stephen Humphreys, University of California, Santa Barbara

'To climatologists who study the past by looking into geological and chemical evidence imprinted in silent natural archives, Ellenblum's work adds the missing element of contemporaneous human observation, experience, and response. His thorough synthesis of numerous documents that reported the occurrence of extreme climate events, weaved together across space and time with records of related conflict and civic system response, adds an invaluable resource for understanding how climate varied in the past and how it has affected humanity.' Yochanan Kushnir, Lamont Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

'Ellenblum has mined sources from many languages, ancient and modern, especially those of chroniclers writing in Arabic, to construct a powerful story: from northeastern Africa through Central Asia severe droughts and extreme cold conditions in the tenth and eleventh centuries resulted in famines, migrations, anarchy, wars, the fall of states, and all manner of social, economic, and political dislocations. No study on 'collapse' and its consequences is as persuasive as this one.' Norman Yoffee, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan

'Fluent, persuasive, iconoclastic and provocative …' History Today

'This book contains a gold mine of written descriptions for the time period that should be useful for scholars.' Journal of Historical Geography

'The study of environmental history in the early Middle Ages is still very much in its infancy; thus Ronnie Ellenblum's contribution, not least because it argues so lucidly for a real climatic impact in various areas of human activity, is to be welcomed wholeheartedly.' Mark Humphries, Early Medieval Europe