Tambora and the Year without a Summer: How a Volcano Plunged the World into Crisis

In 1816, the climate went berserk. The winter brought extreme cold, and torrential rains unleashed massive flooding in Asia. Western Europe and North America experienced a 'year without a summer', while failed harvests in 1817 led to the 'year of famine'. At the time, nobody knew that all these disturbances were the result of a single event: the eruption of Mount Tambora in what is now Indonesia - the greatest volcanic eruption in recorded history.

In this book, leading climate historian Wol...