Clark L. Alejandrino

My dissertation seeks to reconstruct typhoon events, their societal impacts, and responses in coastal China from the 17th to the 20th century. It shows when, where, how often, in what intensity, and in what patterns did typhoons strike China and argues that their seasonal regularity made typhoons play a role in the governance, economy, society, and culture along the coast. Continuities and changes occurred between the Qing, Republican, and Communist periods as centuries-old ways of understanding typhoons interacted with new modes of meteorology, disaster relief, and social and political organization. Arriving at a historical understanding of typhoon history is important to a China that continues to face potentially greater typhoons in an age of human-induced global warming.