Global crisis: war, climate change and catastrophe in the seventeenth century

Introduction: The 'Little ice age' and the 'General crisis'.

Part 1: The placenta of the crisis. The little ice age ; The 'General crisis' ; 'Hunger is the greatest enemy': The heart of the crisis ; 'A third of the world has died': Surviving in the seventeenth century.

Part 2: Enduring the crisis. The 'great enterprise' in China, 1618-84 ; 'The great shaking': Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, 1618-86 ; The 'Ottoman tragedy', 1618-83 ; The 'lamentations of Germany' and its neighbors, 1618-88 ; The agony of the Iberian Peninsula, 1618-89 ; France in crisis, 1618-88 ; The Stuart monarchy: The path to Civil War, 1603-42 ; Britain and Ireland from Civil War to Revolution, 1642-89.

Part 3: Surviving the crisis. The Mughals and their neighbors ; Red flag over Italy ; The 'dark continents': The Americas, Africa and Australia ; Getting it right: Early Tokugawa Japan.

Part 4: Confronting the crisis. 'Those who have no means of support': The parameters of popular resistance ; 'People who hope only for a change': Aristocrats, intellectuals, clerics and 'dirty people of no name' ; 'People of heterodox beliefs ... who will join up with anyone who calls them': Disseminating revolution.

Part 5: Beyond the crisis. Escaping the crisis ; From warfare state to welfare state ; The great divergence.

Conclusion: The crisis anatomized.