ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides some understanding of how people's attitudes to drought may have changed through time and how those changes may appear to be relevant to the strategies to cope with forthcoming droughts. It also focuses on Mycenae, an early victim of droughts. The Mycenaean Empire's power over Greece and the eastern Mediterranean peaked in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries BC but by 1200 BC it had collapsed. The impact of such droughts has been claimed to have possibly contributed to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on Crete, which seems to support Weiss's broader view. Drought, in combination with whatever weaknesses already existed in the societies, appears to have been the final trigger to widespread societal collapse. In central America, human societies developed in the Yucatan Peninsula what is termed the Mayan civilization.
