Category: Non-fiction
Rights: World rights available
Nature’s forces are ever-present, whether through their subliminal persistence or when they appear with powerful ferocity and unpredictability. They have the power to shape landscapes, engender the survival or precipitate the extinction of all life forms. Human societies are no exceptions. We too cannot escape nature’s fickleness. Even minor perturbations in temperature and precipitation can trigger major droughts, storms, and floods. Distant climatic phenomena can set off epidemics, or famines, and in more immediate ways, death.
The Indian subcontinent’s location in tropics, its landscapes and diverse ecologies, renders it particularly vulnerable to nature’s vagaries. A prolonged summer, a delayed or failed monsoon, or a harsh and extended winter can push populations to their brink. Climate’s consequences can cause trade and societies to collapse, and topple empires. Yet nature’s role has received little attention in historical narratives. New scientific methods provide us with near-clear picture of the climate of the past. This information is steadily revising and reshaping regional and micro-histories, especially in Europe, the US and China. Sadly, South Asian history has lagged in accommodating new discoveries to improve our understanding of history.
New scientific information can rectify the glaring absence of nature in the narratives around the subcontinent’s history. If we really want to understand our past, it is imperative to integrate scientific insights and view history through the lens of nature and natural processes.
The Author: Pranay Lal