Join us for The Little Ice Age in China: The Ming Record, a lecture with Tim Brook. The event will be on Friday, March 10, 2023 from 12:15 to 1:15 in Hillyer Hall 319, Brown Fine Arts Center, Smith College. Lunch provided for the first 25 attendees. Please register with the QR code on the poster!

Tim Brook is Emeritus Professor of Chinese History at the University of British Columbia and the general editor of Harvard University Press' History of Imperial China.

The Little Ice Age is widely understood to be a global climate phenomenon stretching from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. Physical proxies suggest that China suffered through this cold period just as Europe did. The purpose of this talk is to demonstrate that documentary proxies tell the story in vivid detail: the prices to which grain rose during climate downturns in the Ming dynasty. On their basis, Brook offers a new interpretation of the history of Ming China rooted in its experience of climate change.

This event is co-sponsored by Department of Art and the Lecture Committee at Smith College, and Department of History, Amherst College.

Free, open to the public, and wheelchair accessible. For disability access information or accommodation requests, please call 413-585-2407. To request a sign language interpreter, call 413-585-2071 (voice or TTY) or email ods@smith.edu at least 10 days before the event.