Original air date: 29 February 2016 | During the late eighteenth century, a series of volcanic eruptions at a site called Laki in Iceland created climatic effects that spanned the entire globe. In this episode, Alan Mikhail shares his research on the impacts of these eruptions on the agrarian economy of Ottoman Egypt through an explanation of the localized climatic and environmental effects of Laki on the Nile River. We discuss how climatic events shape or accelerate historical process and explore how climate history can serve as a means of thinking about unseen connections between different world regions.

http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2016/02/ottoman-iceland.html

Alan Mikhail is Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of The Animal in Ottoman Egypt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) and Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) and editor of Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Chris Gratien holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University's Department of History. His research focuses on the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East.

CREDITS

Episode No. 227
Release Date: 29 February 2016
Recording Location: Yale University
Editing and production by Chris Gratien
Sound excerpts: Kara Güneş - Istanbul; Baglamamin Dugumu - Necmiye Ararat and Muzaffer; Harmandali - Recep Efendi, Cemal Efendi; Turnalar Turnalar - Darulelhan Heyeti
Image "Lava fjelds in Iceland" via Library of Congress
Map courtesy of Alan Mikhail and Stacey Maples
Bibliography courtesy of Alan Mikhail

See Alan Mikhail. "Ottoman Iceland: A Climate History". Environmental History. 20, no. 2 (2015): 262-284.