As far back as the early 1900s, the Quakers have been engaged in a program of quiet private diplomacy that won them a Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. During the turbulent 1960s, hey acted as unofficial conciliators in several tense situations. This compre...

Enlightenment inquiries into the weather sought to impose order on a force that had the power to alter human life and social conditions".British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment" reveals how a new sense of the national climate emerged in the...

Gazing up at the heavens from our backyards or a nearby field, most of us see an undifferentiated mess of stars – if, that is, we can see anything at all through the glow of light pollution. Today's casual observer knows far less about the sky than d...

"Climate is a rather elusive entity", wrote Helmut Landsberg in 1950 as he sorted out some twenty or so competing definitions. This volume of "Osiris" explores the complexities in understanding what climate means from a historical perspective. The vo...

For almost a decade, economists Kevin M. Simmons and Daniel Sutter have been studying the economic impacts and social consequences of the approximately 1,200 tornadoes that touch down across the United States annually. During this time, Simmons and S...