Coping with Crisis : The Resilience and Vulnerability of Pre-Industrial Settlements - Daniel R. Curtis

Coping with Crisis

The Resilience and Vulnerability of Pre-Industrial Settlements

By: Daniel R. Curtis

Paperback | 14 October 2024

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $83.99

$66.75

21%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $16.69 with

 or 

Available for Backorder. We will order this from our supplier however there isn't a current ETA.

Why in the pre-industrial period were some settlements resilient and stable over the long term while other settlements were vulnerable to crisis? Indeed, what made certain human habitations more prone to decline or even total collapse, than others? All pre-industrial societies had to face certain challenges: exogenous environmental hazards such as earthquakes or plagues, economic or political hazards from 'outside' such as warfare or expropriation of property, or hazards of their own-making such as soil erosion or subsistence crises. How then can we explain why some societies were able to overcome or negate these problems, while other societies proved susceptible to failure, as settlements contracted, stagnated, were abandoned, or even disappeared entirely? This book has been stimulated by the questions and hypotheses put forward by a recent 'disaster studies' literature - in particular, by placing the intrinsic arrangement of societies at the forefront of the explanatory framework. Essentially it is suggested that the resilience or vulnerability of habitation has less to do with exogenous crises themselves, but on endogenous societal responses which dictate: (a) the extent of destruction caused by crises and the capacity for society to protect itself; and (b) the capacity to create a sufficient recovery. By empirically testing the explanatory framework on a number of societies between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century in England, the Low Countries, and Italy, it is ultimately argued in this book that rather than the protective functions of the state or the market, or the implementation of technological innovation or capital investment, the most resilient human habitations in the pre-industrial period were those than displayed an equitable distribution of property and a well-balanced distribution of power between social interest groups. Equitable distributions of power and property were the underlying conditions in pre-industrial societies that all

More in General & World History

Looking At Women, Looking At War - Victoria Amelina

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Normal Women : 900 Years Of Making History - Philippa Gregory
The Golden Road : How Ancient India Transformed the World - William Dalrymple
The Times Complete History of the World - Richard Overy

RRP $225.00

$134.75

40%
OFF
The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy : Leather-bound Classics - Confucius
Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari

RRP $24.99

$23.75

Humankind : A Hopeful History - Rutger Bregman

RRP $24.99

$23.75

The End of Everything : How Wars Descend into Annihilation - Victor D Hanson
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - Bettany Hughes

RRP $34.99

$26.75

24%
OFF
The Happiest Man on Earth - Eddie Jaku

RRP $32.99

$18.95

43%
OFF
The Journals of Captain Cook : Penguin Classics - James Cook
The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes

RRP $24.99

$23.75

War - Bob Woodward

Paperback

RRP $37.99

$33.90

11%
OFF
Kokoda : Updated Edition - Peter FitzSimons

RRP $39.99

$32.75

18%
OFF
The Voynich Manuscript - Raymond Clemens

RRP $82.95

$55.00

34%
OFF