On April 26, Geoffrey Parker, Distinguished University Professor, Andreas Dorpalen Professor of European History, and Mershon Center affiliate, was inducted as a member of the American Philosophical Society. The oldest learned society in the United States, the American Philosophical Society was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” In the 21st century they sustain this mission in three principal ways: 

• honor and engage leading scholars, scientists, and professionals through elected membership and opportunities for interdisciplinary, intellectual fellowship, particularly in their semi-annual Meetings, 
• support research and discovery through grants and fellowships, lectures, publications, prizes, exhibitions, and public education,
• serve scholars through a research library of manuscripts and other collections internationally recognized for their enduring historic value. 

The American Philosophical Society’s current activities reflect the founder’s spirit of inquiry, provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and convey the conviction that intellectual inquiry and critical thought are inherently in the best interest of the public. 

On April 25, The Sunday Times of London published the 25 best non-fiction books of the 21st century. A team of literary experts picked the top factual British and Irish works since 2000. Parker’s "monumental" 2013 book Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century was included on the list. Historian Dominic Sandbrook called Global Crisis a “staggeringly researched, rivetingly written, and intellectually dazzling book…that will be debated for decades to come.” Below is an excerpt about Global Crisis from the article.

The 17th century — the age of the Thirty Years’ War, the Scientific Revolution and the fall of the Ming dynasty, as well as the century of Cromwell, Milton and Charles I — was an era of extraordinary instability. Eminent historians have struggled to make sense of such disparate events. But in this staggeringly researched, rivetingly written and intellectually dazzling book, Geoffrey Parker brings all the elements together. The turbulence of the early modern world, he argues, was based not just on economics and ideas but on the grim reality of the Little Ice Age. In many countries the population fell by a third, in Germany by half. For many people life was a Hobbesian nightmare, “nasty, brutish and short”. A stunning book that will be debated for decades to come.