Climate and empire in the nineteenth century

This chapter examines key areas of historical research on climate and climatology during the nineteenth century in the context of empire and colonialism. This research ranges from the reconstruction of past climates and their impacts to the study of medical climatology, understandings of climate change and climate modification, the practice of colonial climatology, and the emergence of a ‘global’ climate. Although scholars have tended to examine these topics separately, common themes emerge when they are brought together; these themes include climate and environmental determinism, scientific cultures and practices, geographies of knowledge and risk, the application of science to economic development, and ideas of spatial and temporal scale.