RACE, CLIMATE AND COLONIALISM: A POLITICAL HISTORY OF MEDICAL RACISM

Abstract

The word ‘climate’ is derived from the Greek word ‘kalima’ which means inclination of earth’s axis. In 400 BCE Hippocrates wrote on the effect of climate on human health and cultural differences between Asia and Europe in his book On Airs, Water and Places. Climate is never uniform, it has different characteristics in different regions. It has a special effect on the lifestyle of every person living under it. Ladurie argues that, when societies were fully depended on agriculture and suffering from long term food supply, there was a relationship between history and climate. The explanation of climate did not remain one dimensional, it changed time to time as research going on. But this explanation was not only depended on scientific based research, other political factors also played an important role to describe the climatic theory. The idea of empire is bound with the knowledge of climate, that’s why Montesquieu argued that, ‘empire of the climate is the first, the most powerful of all empires.’