Product Description

"[The Little Ice Age] could do for the historical study of climate what Michel Foucault's classic Madness and Civilization did for the historical study of mental illness: make it a respectable subject for scholarly inquiry." -Scientific American.. 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

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60943 in Books
• Published on: 2001-12-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"Climate change is the ignored player on the historical stage," writes archeologist Brian Fagan. But it shouldn't be, not if we know what's good for us. We can't judge what future climate change will mean unless we know something about its effects in the past: "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". And Fagan's story of the last thousand years, centered on the "Little Ice Age," reminds us of what we could end up repeating: flood, fire, and famine--acts of God exacerbated by acts of man.

For all that he takes a broad--a very broad--view of European history, Fagan's writing is laced with human faces, fascinating anecdotes, and a gift for the telling detail that makes history live, very much in the style of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror. When Fagan talks about the voyages of Basque fishermen to American shores (probably landing before Columbus sailed), he puts in the taste of dried cod and the terrifying suddenness of fogs on the Grand Banks. The Great Fire of London, what it was like when the Dutch dikes broke, the Irish Potato Famine, the year without a summer, ice fairs on the Thames, and volcanoes in the South Pacific--Fagan makes history a ripping yarn in which we are all actors, on a stage that has always been changing. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Review
"[The Little Ice Age] could do for the historical study of climate what Michel Foucault's classic Madness and Civilization did for the historical study of mental illness: make it a respectable subject for scholarly inquiry." -Scientific American.

About the Author
Professor of Archaeology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Brian Fagan is the author of Floods, Famines, and Emperors, and The Great Journey and the editor of The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Customer Reviews

Absolutely fascinating!
In this fascinating book, Professor Fagan introduces something of a climactic history of Europe. The first chapter covers the Medieval Warm Period of 900 to 1300 AD, when Greenland supported a thriving dairy-producing economy, and when French vintners sought protection against the import of fine English wines! Also sprinkled through the book are references to a Mini-Ice Age that extended from 500 to 900 AD, and an earlier warm period extending from 100 to 400 AD.

The second chapter chronicles the traumatic ordeal that Europe experienced as the planet cooled and weather took on new, harsher patterns. The author then continues on to document the tribulations of Little Ice Age Europe, and the changes that the new environment spurred. In the final chapter, the end of the Little Ice Age is covered, along with the author's thoughts on Global Warming.

This book is absolutely fascinating. Most history books do not mention the climate, except as background. Professor Fagan, on the other hand, rightly shows how the climate can be a major factor. The book is easily read (and not academic in tone), and very informative.

I must admit that this book has changed some of my opinions on Global Warming, and given me a great deal to think about. I am fascinated by the apparent yo-yoing of global temperatures throughout history, and hope to find a book that looks at the subject over a longer timeframe. This is a great book, and I recommend it to everyone.

Fascinating, accessible - well worth reading
I really enjoyed reading this book. It is extremely well written. The science is comprehensible, but doesn't seem to have been oversimplified. The analysis of the impact of climate changes on European history in the period is convincing. The inadequacies in much of the data is made clear and serves to illustrate the difficulties in drawing conclusions about a system as complex as the Earth's climate.

The descriptive passages of life in times past are particularly interesting, for instance the sections on Viking settlements in Iceland and Greenland and cod fishing.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in climate or those who want to expand their understanding of history by considering the impact of some of the more subtle, but overwhelmeing forces that shape human destiny.

A fascinating insight into Medieval climatic changes
This is in many ways a frustrating book. The subject matter is fascinating - the climatic changes of the last 1500 years and their effect on history. Brian Fagan is Professor of Archaeology at the University of California, and is well qualified for the task, but his account leaves the reader feeling curiously unsatisfied. There are many good features of the book, the style is easy and the examples are well chosen, but the connection between the examples and the scientific evidence is not well presented. The account is based on evidence from ice cores, tree rings, volcanic eruptions, historical accounts, wine harvests and instrument records. Yet virtually no attempt has been made to link the documentary observations to scientific data. Instead the reader is left hanging, and is forced to take on trust such assertions as 'tree rings and ice cores chronicle the ever changing climate through the terrible years of the Black Death and Hundred Years War'.The book is largely concerned with Europe and the Atlantic and documents the cold period which extended from the great famine of 1315 to about 1850. Much fascinating evidence is presented, including an account of the abandonment of the Greenland settlements, the late wine harvests in France,the southward migration of the cod shoals, and an account of the eruption of Mount Tambora in Java which produced 'the year without a summer', but there is little in the way of an analysis of the causes of the Little Ice Age. The quality of the maps and diagrams is very disappointing. Some are simplistic to the point of irrelevance, and the reconstructed weather maps are largely speculative. A fascinating book, but one which could have been considerably improved with the inclusion of a bit more science.