*2.2. Historical Periods*

Regarding historical periods, various positive checks such as wars, famines, and epidemics are examined in this Special Issue. The common theme of the associated papers is to reveal the non-linear and complex relationship between climate change and the positive checks in historical China and pre-industrial Europe. Zhang et al. [3] employ Emerging Hot Spot Analysis to examine war hot spots in China from 1–1911. They show that war hot spots were generally located in the Loess Plateau and the North China Plain during warm and wet periods, but in the Central Plain, the Jianghuai area, and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River during cold and dry periods. Furthermore, the hot spots for agri-nomadic warfare had the abovementioned trends, while rebellion hot spots expanded outward during warm and wet phases and compressed inward during cold and dry phases.

Zhai et al. [4] investigate the social responses to the North China Famine of 1876–1879, which was brought on by extreme drought. They show that famine-related migration tended to be spontaneous and short-distanced, with the flow mainly spreading to the surrounding areas and towns. Furthermore, relief-money and grain from the non-disaster areas were allocated to the disaster areas. Yet, such state administrated intervention disrupted the equilibrium of food markets in non-disaster regions, resulting in food price fluctuations there.

Yue and Lee [5] examine the relative impact of the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on plague outbreaks in Europe between 1347–1760 using Structural Equation Models. They found that all of the climatic impacts on plague outbreaks were indirect and were materialized through economic changes. They further demonstrated that temperature-induced economic changes triggered plague outbreaks in cold and wet periods, while precipitation-induced economic changes induced plague outbreaks in cold periods.
