Colonial Cataclysms

Climate, Landscape, and Memory in Mexico’s Little Ice Age

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9328554
AutoresBradley Skopyk (autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Páginas336
Fecha de publicación2020-04-14
Open AccessNo
TipoBOOK
RevistaColonial Cataclysms (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialUniversity of Arizona Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/j.ctv105bb5j
OpenAlexW4235826225
Open LibraryOL29841379M
ISBN9780816541379
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6

"Colonial Cataclysms: Climate, Landscape and Memory in Mexico's Little Ice Age is an in-depth examination of the climatic effects of the hemispheric "Little Ice Age" on pluviosity, soils, and indigenous agriculture in central Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The manuscript offers a corrective of the long-standing scholarly thought that the primary problem facing agriculture in this period was drought. In contrast, Skopyk argues that the problem was in fact elevated rainfall that resulted in flooding and the silting of wetlands, particularly in the watersheds of Tlaxcala. Such elevated rainfall restricted agriculture and led to conditions that were described as "arid" or "desiccated." Such over-saturation of rainfall led to destructive bursts of dirt and water to downstream communities, drastically eroding and degrading soil. At the time, major hydraulic engineering projects were launched, rivers were deemed the "enemy" of the people, and human ingenuity was seen as the only remedy to a capricious and impetuous nature. Historians and thinkers have long considered the region's abundant flooding to be the product of failed hydraulic infrastructure. Skopyk argues that anomalies in the region's temperature have been neglected, converting what he sees as Mexico's "Little Ice Age" into Mexico's "Little Drought Age.""

Art · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · Agriculture · climate · Climate and civilization · Climatology · Crops and climate · History