Geoffrey Parker— The future Charles V first made his presence felt from the womb. In September 1499, Philip summoned ‘a midwife from the city of Lille’ to ‘see and visit’ Joanna; and four months later he sent a courier ‘at the utmost speed, day and night, without sparing men or
Geoffrey Parker— In 1855 the French historian Jules Michelet hailed Archduchess Margaret of Austria as ‘The real “strong man” of the family’ whose efforts, above those of all others, ‘made the House of Austria great’. Rather like the eulogy of Henri Pirenne, this is an exaggeration: although the archduchess proved
Geoffrey Parker— Once upon a time, climate change was a hot topic. In 1979 the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations Environment Programme, the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation paid for 250 historians, geographers, archaeologists and climatologists from thirty countries to share their expertise
Geoffrey Parker prefaces his new book with a collection of quotes, including: “The times here are so miserable that never in the memory of man has the like famine and mortality happened.” –East India Company officials, letter, Surat, India, 1631 ”Among all the strange occurrences of disaster and rebellion, there had