ideas.unimelb.edu.au

Love, hunger & a turn in the weatherProfessor Janet McCalman FAHA, FASSAHistory & Philosophy of Science (Faculty of Arts)Centre for Health & Society (Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences)

“The genius of love and the genius of hunger, those twin brothers, are the two moving forces behind all living things. All living things set themselves in motion to feed and to reproduce. Love and hunger serve the same purpose. Life must never cease; life must be sustained and must create.” —Ivan Turgenev, Poems in Prose, 23

Figure 1: An estimation of the change in the variance of the climate over the last 60 thousand years: William J Burroughs, Climate Change in Prehistory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, p. 52

Figure 3: Population year 1, http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=7

Figure 4: Year 1 Wealth, http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=159

Figure 5: Population year 1500 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=8

Figure 5: Population year 1500 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=8

Figure 7: World’s biocapacity, http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=321

Figure 9: Foundation of towns in Central Europe by decade (1150-1950), Robert Costanza et al, Sustainability or Collapse, (2007), p. 251

Energy production expressed as human calorific energy for workRobert W. Fogel, The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

The Malthusian Trap as depicted in Gregory Clark (2007) A Farewell to Alms, or ‘the economic history of the world in one picture’

Northern Hemisphere temperature [C}

Figure 10: World wealth 1900 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=161

The Columbian ExchangeFigure 11: In Mexico, man makes way for flocks, from Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible (Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, 1; London: Fontana, 1985). p. 36.

Figure 12: The Growth of World Population and the History of Technology, from Robert W. Fogel, The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). p. 22.

ideas.unimelb.edu.au

Love, hunger & a turn in the weatherProfessor Janet McCalman, FAHA, FASSAHistory & Philosophy of Science (Arts)Centre for Health & Society (MDHS)