The Empire of Climate: Ideas, Religions and Histories

In his famous treatise, The Spirit of the Laws (1748) the French philosophe, Montesquieu, stated that ‘the empire of the climate is the first, the most powerful of all empires.’ The impact of climate on the human condition, past, present, and future, is one of the great issues of our time. Based on an important recent book by the distinguished historian of science, David N. Livingstone, The Empire of Climate: A History of an Idea (Princeton University Press, 2024), this course will investigate how humans have thought about climate in relation to four major categories: health, mind, wealth, and war. Patterns of thought, pathways of influence, and progenitors of modern distress or intrigue often crisscross in complex ways within medical, mental, monetary, and military landscapes. Part one of the course will traverse those landscapes and part two will investigate the various ways religious traditions have tried to navigate them ethically and responsibly. The course will have a research paper.