Committee:

David Bell, co-adviser
Anthony Grafton, co-adviser
Jennifer Rampling
Craig Martin, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Francesca Trivellato, Institute for Advanced Study

Abstract:

In January 1709, a series of arctic cold waves swept across the European continent, freezing coastlines from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and all the lands in between. Contemporary accounts depicted a terrible frost that stopped armies in their tracks, killed innumerable persons, and ravaged the roots of dormant crops, ruining the following year’s harvest. In the various languages of the societies affected, this winter came to be known as “the coldest in memory.”

As the first pan-European study of the “Great Winter” of 1708-9, the dissertation investigates why contemporaries and posterity enshrined this particular event, among many comparably cold spells, as a benchmark of hibernal severity by which to measure harsh winters past and present. To answer this question, the dissertation brings together the tools and methods of social and economic history, the history of science, cultural history, and historical climatology, applying them to analyze a wide range of primary sources gathered from 44 archives in Europe and North America.

From this evidentiary base, the dissertation delivers three key findings. First, transformations in early Enlightenment information culture and instrumental observation furnished the conditions for turning 1709 into the “cold standard.” Second, while the cold weather led to ubiquitous surges in grain prices across Europe, France alone suffered an enduring famine and mortality crisis in the winter’s aftermath. I argue that this French exceptionality was a consequence of the kingdom’s situation in the ongoing War of Spanish Succession and its particular infrastructure of provisioning. Finally, by charting the topography of a single winter across and within multiple societies, and their responses to its effects, this dissertation reevaluates the interpretative frameworks of “resilience” and “vulnerability” in climate history.

A copy of the dissertation will be available for review two weeks before the exam. Contact Lee Horinko for a copy of the dissertation and the Zoom meeting link and password.

All are welcome and encouraged to attend.