EXCHANGES, CRISIS AND CLIMATE

“Globality” and “Climate change” in the early modern period comprise the two parts of this book, which starts with the inquiry, “What can the art produced in the 16th and 17th centuries tell us about the changes people were facing?” To answer this question, the first part explores 16th-century globalizing impulses through the creation of world routes and markets that crystallized in the opening of trade with China. The second part focuses on a concomitant phenomenon to transcontinental and transoceanic explorations: the climatic crisis known as the Little Ice Age and its literary depictions. As a result, early modern literature and Hispanisms are brought to the fore of two of the most relevant conversations of the 21st century: globality and climate change.