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The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today's global warming. Only in the last decade have climatologists developed an accurate picture of yearly climate conditions in historical times. This development confirmed a long-standing suspicion: that the world endured a 500-year cold snap, a little ice age, that lasted roughly from AD 1300 until 1850. With its basis in cutting-edge science, The Little Ice Age offers a new perspective on familiar events. Renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan shows how the increasing cold affected Norse exploration; how changing sea temperatures caused English and Basque fishermen to follow vast shoals of cod all the way to the New World; how a generations-long subsistence crisis in France contributed to social disintegration and ultimately revolution; and how English efforts to improve farm productivity in the face of a deteriorating climate helped pave the way for the Industrial Revolution and hence for global warming. This is a fascinating, original book for anyone interested in history, climate, or the new subject of how they interact. "Fagan shows in this wonderful book how vulnerable human society is to climatic zigzags." "[A] highly readable and erudite analysis." "An engrossing historical volume." "A fascinating account of events both obscure and well known, including the French Revolution and the Irish potato famine, as seen through the lens of weather and its effect on harvests." "A nimble, lively, provocative book." "The Little Ice Age could do for the historical study of climate what Foucault's Madness and Civilization did for the historical study of mental illness: make it a respectable subject for scholarly inquiry."… (more)
User reviews
I am very impressed with the way the author kept to his subject and avoided trying to make climatic swings during this time period match up with historic swings from the Battle of Agincourt on. There are some spots where it is
His willingness to attempt to show world weather rather than a strickly Eurocentric view is fine.
I would highly recommend this book to those who believe in global warming blamable on man, as well as to those who believe that mankind has had nothing to do with it.
Between the relative stability of the mediaeval and modern warm periods, came hundreds of years of climatic instability. The climate seesawed randomly between hot summers, cold winters, late frosts, cool summers, drought, famines due to excessive rainfall, land lost to encroaching glaciers sea surges or sand, and lots of volcanic activity. A fascinating study of how climate change affected everyday life, social change and historical events in Europe and the rest of the world.
Starting in the early 1300s, weather became increasingly destructive to farming, with repeated cold spells, drenching rains and unexpected droughts. Fagan takes us all the way through to the 1800s and the blistering Irish famine that pushed so many to emigrate or die. In between, he notes the persistent rain in the 14th and 15th centuries that turned farmlands and pasturelands to seas of mud and certainly contributed to the outcomes of battles (for instance, Agincourt) as well as privation. He notes calamity in the New World as well, as early settlers in North America fought to live through one of the coldest winters of the age, the Incan Empire and other indigenous societies were ruined by drought, volcanic eruptions blocked the sun, and the Thames froze solid.
And of course, he ends the age with our own interference in climate. This book, published in 2000, is cautious about laying all the global warming at our feet, citing other contributing possibilities. But his description of one possible outcome is literally chilling, as fresh water melt covers the north end of the Gulf Stream and shuts off the downwelling of that great warm river in the sea. Once we scorch the Earth, another Ice Age may come again.