Sugata Ray's Climate Change and the Art of Devotion is an ambitious book that explores how human interactions with the earth and its environment—an emerging specialization within the environmental humanities known as geoaesthetics—shaped the art and architecture of Braj, the region in north-central India associated with the life of the Hindu divinity Krishna. Discussing the historical evolution of geoaesthetics in relation to the art and architectural projects of this region, Ray employs an analytical framework that reveals the profound connections between designs and ecological conditions in Braj from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, during the period of the Little Ice Age, or LIA (14–22). The focus on geoaesthetics and ecology represents an innovative approach to the study of South Asian art history, and Ray largely succeeds in persuading the reader of the advantages of this method. Less successful is his framing of the argument within new debates about localized...

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