The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850

by Brian Fagan

Overview

The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history, how this altered climate affected historical events, and what it means for today's global warming. Building on research that has only recently confirmed that the world endured a 500year cold snap, renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan shows how the increasing cold influenced familiar events from Norse exploration to the settlement of North America to the Industrial Revolution. This is a fascinating book for anyone interested in history, climate, and how they interact.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465022724
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	12/27/2001
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	960,789
Product dimensions:	5.37(w) x 8.12(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Brian Fagan is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he has written many internationally acclaimed popular books about archaeology, including The Little Ice Age, Floods, Famines, and Emperors, and The Long Summer. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xix

Author's Note xxi

Part 1 Warmth and Its Aftermath

1 The Medieval Warm Period 3

2 The Great Famine 23

Part 2 Cooling Begins

3 The Climatic Seesaw 47

4 Storms, Cod and Doggers 61

5 A Vast Peasantry 79

Part 3 The End of the "Full World"

6 The Specter of Hunger 101

7 The War Against the Glaciers 113

8 "More Like Winter Than Summer" 129

9 Dearth and Revolution 149

10 The Year Without a Summer 167

11 An Ghorta Mór 181

Part 4 The Modern Warm Period

12 A Warmer Greenhouse 201

Afterword 219

Notes 231

Index 247

Editorial Reviews

"Fagan shows in this wonderful book how vulnerable human society is to climatic zigzags."—New Scientist

"Even without the contemporary relevance lent the book by the specter of global warming, The Little Ice Age would be an engrossing historical volume."—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

"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."—Scientific American

"A nimble, lively, provocative book."—Booklist

"[A] highly readable and erudite analysis."—Guardian

"An engaging history.... 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."—Foreign Affairs

From the Publisher