This collection of essays brings together historians examing social and economic crises from the thirteenth century to the twenty-first. Crisis is an almost ubiquitous concept for historians, applicable across (amongst others) the histories of agriculture, disease, finance and trade. Yet there has been little attempt to compare its use as an explanatory tool between these discrete fields of research. This volume breaks down the boundaries between traditional historical time periods and subdisciplines of history to examine the ways in which past societies have coped with crises, and the role of crisis in generating economic and social change.