"Meteors and Climates of Yesterday: Describing and Perceiving the Weather from Antiquity to the 19th Century" | Joëlle Ducos

Since the pioneering work of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, reflections on climate change and reconstructions of past climates bring a dual questioning. The first, theoretical, is based on the possible modeling for a history of climate and the sources used. The second is about the evolution of meteorological and climatological theories, from the early Greek reflections to the beginnings of instrumental and mathematical meteorology. These two questions lead to a reflection on the description and perception of meteorological and climatic phenomena in texts and documents. Table of contents: Introduction, Joëlle Ducos METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA IN HISTORY I. Meteorology and climate in Natural History - from Pliny the Elder, Valérie Naas II. Explaining meteorological phenomena in the Middle Ages (12th century), Joëlle Ducos III. The clouds of the Enlightenment, Anouchka Vasak IV. The icy world of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Frédérique Rémy HISTORY OF METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATE FROM THE 17TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT I. Dutch "meteophiles" and snow in the 17th century, Alexis Metzger and Martine Tabeaud II. François Arago the visionary: meteorology and climatology, Guy Jacques III. Societies facing the vagaries of weather in Western France (16th-19th century), Jérémy Desarthe IV. Two hundred years of reflection on grape harvest bans: a historiographical assessment of the issue, Fabien Gaveau and Thomas Labbé