The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850 | 
 enlarge | Author: Brian M. Fagan
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $7.83
You Save: $9.12 (54%)
New (44) from $7.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  63 reviews
Sales Rank: 14722
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0465022723
Dewey Decimal Number: 551.694
EAN: 9780465022724
ASIN: 0465022723
Publication Date: December 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com 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
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 58 more reviews...
Ice, Ice, Baby November 4, 2008
Brian Fagan is a renowned archaeologist with an engaging writing style. He looks at a 500 year period, now known as the Little Ice Age, and its affect on historical events. Fagan utilizes a variety of very interesting sources, like contemporary medieval journals, winery records and the business records of 14th century monastaries, to fill in his intriguing mosaic. This book isn't strictly about weather but about the interplay of global climate changes and civilization's struggle to survive. While Fagan doesn't disagree that man's use of fossil fuels may be adversely affecting our current global climate, one realizes by the end of the book that man has very little to do with how this planet moves, groans and changes. Ocean, wind, freezing, thawing, flooding, drought - we endure these things but we don't cause them and we cannot significantly alter them. The Earth moves at its own pace.
What I found most interesting about the book is the volume and wide variety of historical events that Fagan references, effectively lost to modern memory, but resurrected here for the curious.
 Vividly Written and Extremely Valuable History October 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The author of this book is not an environmental determinist, but he makes a plea for us to observe weather as best we can, not only in our time, but in history, and study its interplay with human social, political, artistic, and military activity. He speaks of ice cores, tree rings, contemporary chronicles, and even paintings as ways to recover information about the weather of the past, and his focus is of course the cold years in Europe between 1300 and 1850. The book is filled with vital details; it is filled with precisely stated and very readable observations about what weather has meant to people, what it might mean to us, and it urges us to be more conscious of what is happening with weather today. I found it extremely inviting and thought provoking, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in European history and art. There is tremendous scope here. Anyone interested in Global Warming ought certainly to read the book, too. Quite a pleasure. Quite a terrific book.
Eye opening September 25, 2008
Superbly done. The book really hammers out the crucial points of how dramatic historical events were somehow related to violent climate shifts that lasted over 500 years.
The book examines origins of these violent climate shifts, discusses life during the middle ages and talks about intriguing topics of world events shaped by global climate. Such famous events are the French Revolution, Bubonic Plague of the 1300's, Potato Irish Famine, JamesTown to name just a few.
The Arthur is very to the point and uses excellent statistics and data to back things up.
Truly an epic book that will completely change your outlook on history forever.
Its only 200 pages and can be finished in a weekend. Get it and enjoy.
The Little Ice Age September 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book was in better condition than expected and arrived sooner than expected, Thank you.
Unbiased climate effects on Europe in centuries past August 10, 2008
This book is a social history of Western Europe and other areas from c.1500-1900. It describes how volcanos, sunspots, ocean currents and other natural phenomena unknown or unappreciated by these people affected their lives. It's an easy read full of anecdotes with a dose of science and the many methods scientists use to determine climate so long ago.
It's politically neutral and emphasizes the complex processes involved but it's essentially a social history of a period where Winters and Summers were highly variable without much human influence. A great read for an easy understanding of some of the complexities behind the "climate debate".
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