Alan Mikhail, Professor, Dept. of History, Yale University

Alan is the author of Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt and Environmental History, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, and Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History; and the editor of Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa.

Paper Title: “Climate and Crisis in a Place Called Ottoman Iceland”

Paper Abstract: In June 1783, the Laki volcanic fissure began erupting in Iceland. It would continue to do so for the next eight months. One of the largest volcanic discharges in recorded history, the ash it produced led to cold summers across Europe, the Mediterranean, the Americas, and parts of Central Asia. This lecture examines the impacts of the explosions on Ottoman Egypt and uses this climate history of Iceland and Egypt to analyze ways of doing global environmental history.