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Actually, it is quite similar to a History Channel documentary of the same name. We leave the Little Ice Age and receive a lecture on Global Warming that is at variance with some of the things we've just read. However, his stories of how the fishing industry was affected by the shift to a colder climate was surprisingly interesting.A lengthy discussion of how the colder climate change brought more disease, famine and general mayhem is punctuated by the single best one page description of the changes in farming methods that came about in the 1600-1700s that I have ever read (page 107).An interesting (and too short) section on glaciers proved quite fascinating and should be required reading for those that point to the melting of those "ancient" glaciers in our day as a cause for worry. Why is global warming so bad then. Fagan warns that this is a parachutist book - an overview.So, what of this overview. Fagan starts with the Vikings and covers an area that is better covered by Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Brian Fagan's "The Little Ice Age" is, by definition, an introduction to the climate phenomenon of the same name. 17) and spent the better part of 200 pages telling us that cooling brings famine, death and disease.
To me, that seems to be a methane trade-off.Regardless, this is really a nice little book. Early on in the book he tells us the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than we are now (p. You'll undoubtedly learn something new. However, too many maps is much better than the normal too few that are in most books.The end of the book gets bogged down in the Irish Potato Famine. On page xix Fagan notes that historians are either "parachutists" (big picture) or "truffle hunters" (love all of the details of one particular era or topic). On page 206 he mentions cattle herding as a source of methane over the last 150 years.
If 200 years old is ancient, well.Frequent maps are a big positive but some of them are unnecessary. We go from being a parachutist to a Truffle Hunter in this section.The last chapter is a commentary on something out of the scope of the book's stated thesis. In the United States at least, cattle herding was only possible by clearing out the deer and buffalo east of the Mississippi and by killing off millions of buffalo out west (imagine herds from one horizon to the other in the Great Plains) to make room for millions of head of cattle. Skip the last chapter.
This book is both a very good history regarding the most recent climatic cold period, 1300-1850, and a statement of the author's view on the very emotionally charged issue of global warming. Fagan takes information from ships logs, ice cores, long ago wine harvests and business records from monasteries and weaves this information into a story about history, the weather and how the two interact. This is a very thought provoking, challenging book, quite topical given the pathos surrounding the current politicization of global warming.
And we know that for the most part it was materially colder in the 17th and 18th centuries than it is today. Why the Midwest is more prone to beer and whisky, as opposed to the East and West coast's preference for wine, is quite amusing and probably true. There is no doubt that climate change impacts man and thus civilization's history.
Brian Fagan does a remarkable job of humanizing this issue as it has unfolded over the past 150 years. We also know there were periods when the earth's climate was significantly warmer.The problem is, and I am certainly no expert, that climatic changes evolve slowly, over hundreds, possibly thousands of years, and that while the 750 billion year old earth certainly has seen substantively hotter and colder periods, man's recorded history, let alone man's recorded climatic history, is horrifically brief given the amazing length of time the earth has been here. In short, the difference between theory and practice is huge.But do not let that bother you.
However, his contention that changing weather patterns, as opposed to a freak storm, caused the French Revolution might reach too far, but no matter. It is very interesting.
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. He looks at a 500 year period, now known as the Little Ice Age, and its affect on historical events. Brian Fagan is a renowned archaeologist with an engaging writing style. Ocean, wind, freezing, thawing, flooding, drought - we endure these things but we don't cause them and we cannot significantly alter them. 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. 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.
There is tremendous scope here. 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 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. Anyone interested in Global Warming ought certainly to read the book, too. 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. Quite a pleasure. Quite a terrific book.
The Arthur is very to the point and uses excellent statistics and data to back things up. 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. Superbly done. Truly an epic book that will completely change your outlook on history forever. 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. Its only 200 pages and can be finished in a weekend. Get it and enjoy.
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