Review on history - Assignment Example

The article itself found that in pre-industrial and late medieval history, environmental changes and shocks were able to powerfully affect the lives of those that were considered within the case study. This of course had to do mainly with crop production, animal health and reproduction, and human life expectancy/infant mortality. As a means of gathering the data to inform the result, the researchers relied on ice core analysis from Greenland to help paint a reliable image of what weather patterns in and around this time reflected.

Due to the fact that no primary sources can be relied upon due to the unscientific manner that they necessarily represented, it was up to the researchers to find alternate means of providing the data concerning environmental change during the given time (Campbell 2010). The methodology therefore consisted of utilizing these ice cores and comparing the weather results represented therein as a means of comparison with historical records regarding crop yields, quality of life, animal reproduction, and human lifespan/infant mortality figures. . not something that has taken place in the past and will necessarily not occur again; rather, it is an ongoing and natural process, oftentimes aided on by human destruction of the environment.

In such a context, seeking to understand the role that environmental change has directly affected on the lives and livelihoods of past generations is a valuable starting point from whence to seek to draw a level of inference as to what may take place in the future with regards to the same issues today. Finally, with regards to the way the data was presented, it was lain out in a way that with a proper amount of analysis the reader/researcher can readily understand what is being presented. Likewise, the main conclusions that the piece draw necessarily relate to the fact environmental change has a profound and lasting effect on the way that human societies conduct themselves and relate to economic development within the constraints of such environmental change.

Key limitations to the research are of course concentric upon the fact that the primary data sources which can be drawn upon are far removed and suspect to a degree erroneous data; thereby leading to inconclusive or incorrect findings. Although this is not a fault of the researchers, it is part and parcel of seeking to perform a level of scientific and social analysis upon a time period that did not keep detailed or conclusive records. In much the same way, the second article, entitled, “The Economic Impact of the Little Ice Age” helps to shine a light on the means by which the economies of pre-industrial Europe.

By means of analyzing the data sets with relation to weather patterns, crop yields, and other economic indicators, the authors are able to provide the reader/researcher with a detailed economic analysis of the