Environmental Crises at the End of Safavid History: The Collapse of Iran's Early Modern Imperial Ecology, 1666–1722

The 17th century was a period of transition in world history. It was marked globally by social movements emerging in response to widespread drought, famine, disease, warfare, and dislocation linked to climate change. Historians have yet to situate Safavid Iran (1501–1722) within the “General Crisis.” This article, coauthored by an environmental historian and a climate scientist, revisits primary sources and incorporates tree-ring evidence to argue that an ecological crisis beginning in the late 17th century contributed to the collapse of the imperial ecology of the Safavid Empire. A declining resource base and demographic decline conditioned the unraveling of imperial networks and the empire's eventual fall to a small band of Afghan raiders in 1722. Ultimately, this article makes a case for the connectedness of Iran to broader global environmental trends in this period, with local circumstances and human agency shaping a period of acute environmental crisis in Iran.

Flattening the Curve: Learning the lessons of world history to mitigate societal crises

The world is experiencing myriad crises, from global climate change to a major pandemic to runaway inequality, mass impoverishment, and rising sectarian violence. Such crises are not new, but have been recurrent features of past societies. Although these periods have typically led to massive loss of life, the failure of critical institutions, and even complete societal collapse, lessons can be learned from societies that managed to avoid the more devastating and destructive outcomes. Here, we present a preliminary analysis of outcomes from periods of crisis in 50 historical societies and examine closely four cases of averted crisis in world history, highlighting common features. A key observation is that the structural-demographic cycles that give rise to societal crises typically incorporate a ‘gilded age’ during which more future-minded governance could avert future crises. To accomplish more forward-thinking public policy, capable not just of ‘flattening the curve’, but of actually breaking the cycle that produces societal crises in the first place, we argue that systematic quantitative analysis of patterns in world history is a necessary first step.

Rich kids of Europe? Social basis and strategic choices in the climate activism of Fridays for Future

In 2018, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg began a school strike that quickly spread across the globe. After a ritual strike every Friday by school pupils to call for urgent action against climate change had gone on for several months, what had become Fridays for Future (FFF) called for various global days of action throughout 2019, bringing millions of people out onto the streets in the largest climate protests in world history. Drawing on unique protest survey data on FFF events across European cities in 2019, this article explores the structural bases of organized collective mobilization for climate justice. Nuancing narratives that focus on either the privileged background of climate justice protesters or the environmentalism of the poor, our results show the heterogeneity of the social composition of the protests, suggesting the need for cross-class alliances for mass mobilizations. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the social background of protesters shaped their attitudes regarding what institutions and approaches can be relied upon to tackle climate and environmental challenges. This suggests an important and under-studied connection between social background and the strategic choices of environmental movements.

Peter the Great in the historiosophy of Vasily Rozanov

The article is in the problematic field of the historiosophy of Russian culture. In understanding the essence of historiosophy, the author of the article focuses on the deontology by Nikolai Kareev and the “passionarity” theory of Lev Gumilyov. In addition, the works of contemporary researchers of Russian historiosophy are involved. The texts of Vasily Rozanov, associated with his understanding of the personality of Peter the Great, the first Emperor’s place and role in Russian history. In choosing Vasily Rozanov’s texts, the author of the article uses a chronological method, a way to present V. Rozanov’s historiosophical views in development. In addition, the historical and cultural method is used to explain the essence of the meanings of historical phenomena, sometimes their inconsistency. The article notes that for the first time Vasily Rozanov turns to the personality of Peter the Great in his philosophical treatise “On Understanding”, where he points to the originality of Peter I and inscribes him in world history. It turns out that in the articles of the 1890s, Vasily Rozanov discovers in Peter I a person who brings suffering to the country and at the same time sincerely loves it. In a special article about Peter I and later in “Fallen Leaves”, Vasily Rozanov reveals the most significant ideals realised by the Emperor. In his final work, Vasily Rozanov emphasises the need for Peter I and, at the same time, the tragic consequences of his reforms for the country. As a result, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that Peter the Great is the alpha and the omega of Vasily Rozanov’s historiosophical views.

J.A.A. Joyce’s type of chronotope in Mikhail Shishkin’s non-fiction “Russian Switzerland”

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of the organisation of spatio-temporal structures in the novel “Ulysses” by James Augustine Aloysius Joyce and the literary-historical guide “Russian Switzerland” by Mikhail Shishkin. The general way of permeability of the boundaries of fiction – non-fiction genres and the reflection of this process in the world and Russian literature of the 20th–21st centuries is investigated. It is proved that for Mikhail Shishkin, as well as for J.A.A. Joyce, everyday life becomes an experimental field, where J.A.A. Joyce's deliberately destroyed time is rethought by the modern author into the category of simultaneity, which allows people and events separated by centuries to be viewed at one point in space. J.A.A. Joyce and Milhail Shishkin think of time as a way of organising events and facts as a spatial one, which allows us to present world history as a creative chaos of events, the expansion of which into the genre of non-fiction makes the narrative strategy more multidimensional, rather than as a system of causes and effects. The two authors are brought together not only by a common literary tradition, but also by an autobiographical understanding of emigration, thanks to which Mikhail Shishkin deliberately builds himself as a mediator between cultures, for whom J.A.A. Joyce’s speech techniques are a self-evident core of the artistic style of the new emigre prose.