Abstract

Why is the Weather Channel one of the top ranked cable networks? Why was The Day After Tomorrow a summer blockbuster? The Weather in the Imagination seeks to answer these and other questions about our fascination with the weather, as Lucian Boia offers an intriguing analysis of the theories, scenarios, and psychoses caused by climate.

Boia here examines the cultural influence of weather through the lens of anthropology and psychology, history, and catastrophe. He first investigates how human diversity is linked to weather and why people differ according to their native climates. He then looks at how climate can explain the dynamics of historical progress and the rise and fall of civilizations, citing how Nazis used it to justify the superiority of the "Aryan" race. And what can destroy or induce panic in a society more effectively than a good climatic jolt? Boia investigates the social upheaval caused by catastrophic weather conditions, citing the most gripping example in human history, the Biblical Flood.

The Weather in the Imagination is a thought-provoking chronicle of how humans throughout history have been bewildered, infuriated, and often terrified by the weather.

"He brings breadth and clarity to a much overlooked but historically profound subject."--Glasgow Herald — Glasgow Herald
"Boia's timely book places current concerns about climate change into context ... plenty of illuminating interludes."--The Guardian
  — P.D. Smith, The Guardian
Lucian Boia is professor of history at the University of Bucharest. His previous books include Romania: Borderland of Europe and Forever Young: A Cultural History of Longevity, both published by Reaktion Books.