The availability of resources tends to be a factor in many wars

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Pretty much every time the Steppe imposes itself on the outside world coincides with climatic problems.

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Atilla was just an innocent Hun trying to make his way in the world.

Nah, they went around. Makes Hannibal that much more badass

When you pull samples and see that every tree had less growth x rings ago, you can determine aspects of weather.

Weather can have a huge impact on war. D-Day occured when it did because it was a clear day. Vikings spread from Scandinavia because there wasn't enough fertile land to go around. Napoleon in Russia. Similar theories exist for the bronze age collapse. The seas around Cape Horn meant that controlling the Cape of Good Hope was crucial for controlling global trade.

She’s disappeared off the radar. Knollys was the subject of various historical romances which were at one time quite widely read, eg “The Rose of Raby” , but these went down the memory hole after WW2. They weren’t particularly well written, but that is not necessarily a draw back. If a movie producer had picked it up and cast someone like Vivien Leigh, it could all have been different. Who gave a toss about Thomas Cromwell before Hilary Mantel made him the subject of the “Wolf Hall” trilogy, two of which won the Booker Prize?

Thanks, I think I have it in my library, one of those books that keeps getting buried and not read lol Not sure though my library has been shoved into boxes as my kids books replace them lol.

Collapse; how societies choose to fail or succeed" was good as well : )

A tree is probably more qualified than half the “independent researchers” online honestly

All solid points. However, I just want to add here that Harper’s “The Fate of Rome”, which tried to compile as much of the climate data as possible, argues that the steppe as a whole along what is today Kazakhstan was drying in this period. It probably forced the Huns to move rather than forced them to become raiders in the first place. We see something similar going on along the North Sea coast, with settlements slowly becoming flooded due to rising tides, possibly playing a role in migration to the British isles

That’s what I like. Science and history dovetail each other sometimes. Geography, too.

Kings and Generals made a video about the Mongols recently. Ghenghis Khan was lucky to be born in a time where the weather was suitable for the steppes.

Kyle Harper's book, The Fate of Rome gets into the combination of pandemics and climate change in that area and the impact they might have had on end of Rome. It's not hard to imagine that the changes going on would also impact where the Huns were from.

His book isn't too long and it's very interesting to read. I'd recommend it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34427005-the-fate-of-rome

But no, i was thinking specifically sparta and messenia

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Posts like this make me despair. How about the history of any people who have been brutally exploited, is that all grist to the mill for a “horror movie”?

Yeah this was something Dan Jones was covering in Power and Thrones.

It's kind of wild how little interest historians have historically had in geography and the environmental context of history.

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I've been out of academia for a while, but my hope is that the focus going forward emphasizes human agency in addressing those non-human factors, and the factors presented by those factors. Particular problems encourage the development of particular solutions, but a specific solution isn't a foregone conclusion since there can be multiple viable options to pursue. In the situation of the Huns, what if the Goths who crossed the Danube in 376 had been adequately supported by Roman authorities, rather than provoked? Would cooperation between Romans and Goths avert an Adrianople and subsequent fallout? Would this significantly deflate the threat posed by the Huns in the first place? I don't mean to turn this into alternative history; instead, I use this to point out how there are so many variables with differing potential outcomes.

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They were so thirsty they destroyed Rome

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