Introduction

Clarence Glacken's monumental overview of environmental ideas from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, published in 1967 but still an essential reference in the field, includes several chapters on what are often called ‘climate theories’ (théories des climats, Klimatheorien, teorie dei climi). Such doctrines are centered on the idea that place and climate shape the body, mind, and character of human beings, influencing moreover the organization and development of human societies. In his book, Glacken explores several moments in the long tradition of climate theories, including their origins in ancient Greece (with authors such as Hippocrates and Aristotle), their medieval reception, and their presence in the early modern period, often thought to have represented their ‘golden age’. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, Glacken shows, climate theories reached an unprecedented level of visibility (they were somewhat ubiquitous) and complexity (they were put to many uses). While acknowledging their historical importance, however, Glacken claims that early modern climate theories represented a dead end on the path of intellectual development, and that ‘[i]t would be useless to claim that [these theories] contributed anything to understanding the relation of human cultures and their natural environment’. Glacken argues that these theories ‘could by no conceivable means lead to science’, and therefore considers them to be of only limited interest today. At best, he suggests, they have the negative merit of revealing ‘the inability of two millennia of accumulated lore to be of any real help in explanation’.