Interview with Kyle Harper on his book The Fate of Rome. How climate change and pandemic disease — not just barbarian invasion — drove the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Climate Optimum gave way to cooling, crop failures, and the Plague of Justinian.
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Highlights
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Climate shapes civilization more than politics
The Roman Climate Optimum (200 BCE - 150 CE) provided ideal agricultural conditions that underwrote Roman expansion. When the climate shifted, the agricultural foundation of empire crumbled.
Complex systems have invisible dependencies that only become apparent in crisis
Rome depended on climate stability it didn't know about. The empire was engineered for conditions that changed, revealing dependencies no Roman administrator understood.