内容简介

14世纪，“旧世界”（the Old World）在既定的历史轨道上经历了一系列深刻而突然的变化，气候恶化、流行病暴发、战争升级、白银产量下降等开始一起发生作用，导致大陆间的交换网破裂、经济衰退和人口减少。这一系列的风暴启动了不可逆转的体系更迭。直到15世纪末，大航海、大发现兴起之时，西方才开始再次崭露头脚。

这次“大转型”席卷了亚欧大陆，是一次影响深远的命运反转。坎贝尔综合使用历史学、古生态学和生物学的新证据，包括核算国民收入、重建过去的气候和对从瘟疫受害者牙齿中提取的DNA进行遗传分析，评价了商业衰退、战争、气候变迁和流行病在这次“大转型”中发挥的作用，提出动态社会-生态系统的核心六要素理论，对中世纪晚期商业经济的产生、崩溃和重组做出了全新的解释。

“大转型”结束之时，西方在技术和贸易上开始从落后者转为领先者。实际上，正是从“大转型”开始，东西方“大分流”就此发端。

作者简介

布鲁斯·M.S.坎贝尔（Bruce M.S.Campbell）

英国贝尔法斯特女王大学中世纪经济史荣休教授，荣休前曾在贝尔法斯特女王大学经济史系，历史系，地理、考古和古生态学院工作，其研究和教学跨越科学和人文领域的许多学科，如地理学、经济史、历史地理学、考古学和古生物学等。其主要研究领域为中世纪晚期英国和爱尔兰的经济史，尤其关注14世纪人类与环境的互动。主要著作有《大转型：中世纪晚期的气候、疾病、社会与现代世界的形成》《英国贵族农业（1250—1450年）》等。

坎贝尔利用英国中世纪众多档案中包含的大量详细的统计信息，系统揭示在相对贫穷、欠发达、容易发生生存危机和饥荒时国家的经济发展情况。他重建中世纪晚期伦敦的供应链（1993年）、分析领主自营地的产出（2000年）、考察非贵族庄园的属性（2006年）、创建国家作物产量数据库（2007年）、追溯1270年的英国国民收入（2015年），以及调查中世纪晚期气候、疾病和社会之间的相互作用（2016年）。

坎贝尔是爱尔兰皇家科学院院士（1997年）、英国皇家历史学会会士（2001年）、英国社会科学院院士（2003年）、英国科学院院士和英国国家人文和社会科学研究院院士（2009年）、2013年当选欧洲科学院院士，先后荣获罗士培奖、经济史协会亚瑟·H.柯尔奖、皇家历史学会惠特菲尔德奖等。

Content introduction

In the 14th century, the "Old World" experienced a series of profound and sudden changes in its established historical trajectory, as worsening climate, outbreaks of epidemics, escalating wars, and declining silver production began to work together, causing the breakdown of the intercontinental exchange network, economic decline, and population decline. This series of storms set in motion an irreversible change in the system. It was not until the end of the 15th century, with the rise of great voyages and great discoveries, that the West began to emerge again.

This "great transition" swept across the Eurasian continent, a profound reversal of fortune. Using a combination of new evidence from history, paleoecology, and biology, including accounting for national income, reconstructing past climates, and genetic analysis of DNA extracted from the teeth of plague victims, Campbell evaluates the role of commercial decline, war, climate change, and epidemics in this "Great transition," and proposes a theory of the six core elements of dynamic social-ecosystems. A new interpretation of the emergence, collapse and reorganization of the commercial economy in the late Middle Ages.

At the end of the Great Transition, the West began to move from laggard to leader in technology and trade. In fact, it was from the beginning of the "Great transformation" that the "Great divergence" between the East and the West began.

About the author

Bruce M.S.Campbell

Emeritus Professor of Medieval Economic History, Queen's University Belfast, UK. Before his retirement, he worked in the Department of Economic History, the Department of History, and the School of Geography, Archaeology and Paleoecology at Queen's University Belfast. His research and teaching span many disciplines in the fields of science and humanities, such as geography, economic history, historical geography, archaeology and paleontology. His main area of research is the economic history of late Medieval England and Ireland, with a particular focus on the interaction of man with the environment in the 14th century. His books include The Great Transformation: Climate, Disease, Society, and the Making of the Modern World in the Late Middle Ages and English Aristocratic Agriculture (1250-1450).

Using a wealth of detailed statistical information contained in numerous archives of medieval England, Campbell systematically reveals the economic development of countries when they were relatively poor, underdeveloped, and prone to existential crises and famines. He has reconstructed the supply chain of late medieval London (1993), analysed the output of landlord-owned estates (2000), examined the properties of non-aristocratic estates (2006), created a national crop yield database (2007), and traced British national income back to 1270 (2015). And investigating the interactions between climate, disease, and society in the late Middle Ages (2016).

Campbell is a Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy of Sciences (1997), a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (2001), a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences (2003), a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the National Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (2009), and a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (2013). He has won the Rosberg Prize and the Arthur H. Cole Prize, Royal Historical Society Whitfield Prize, etc.