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

_The Little Ice Age_ by Brian Fagan is a fascinating, very readable, and well researched book on the science and history of a particular period of climatic history, the "Little Ice Age," which lasted approximately from 1300 to 1850. Despite the name, the Little Ice Age (a term coined by glacial geologist Francois Matthes in 1939, a term he used in a very informal way and without capitalized letters) was not a time of unrelenting cold. Rather, it was an era of dramatic climatic shifts, cycles of intensely cold winters and easterly winds alternating with periods of heavy spring and early summer rains, mild winters, and frequent and often devastating Atlantic storms as well as periods of droughts, light northeasterly winds, and intense summer heat. The Little Ice Age was "an endless zigzag of climatic shifts," few lasting more than 25 years or so. Nevertheless the climate of the time proved difficult and overall was uniformly cooler, often considerably so, than the time before and afterwards. The Little Ice Age was an era when there used to be winter fairs on the frozen River Thames during the time of King Charles II, one that produced the great gales that devastated the Spanish Armada in 1588, was when George Washington's Continental Army endured a brutal winter in Valley Forge in 1777-1778, when pack ice surrounded Iceland for much of the year, when Alpine glaciers destroyed villages and advanced kilometers from their present positions, when hundreds of poor died of hypothermia regularly every winter in London late into the 19th century. It was also a time of massive rainy periods, such as the immense rains of 1315 and 1316 that helped stop the armies of French King Louis X from crushing the rebellious Flemings and produced an immense famine as crops couldn't survive the near unending rain. Piecing together the climatic history of the Little Ice Age has been a challenge, one that required a multidisciplinary approach. Fagan recounted how reliable instrument records only go back a few centuries and then primarily only for Europe and North America. Researchers have instead relied on information obtained from tree rings, ice cores, lake and marine bottom sediment cores, wine harvest records, analysis of the weather portrayed in art of the period, and anecdotal written records of country clergymen and gentleman scientists to piece together what the weather was like during the time period. Although the causes of the Little Ice Age are not completely understood, much of it had to do with the actions of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a "seesaw" of atmospheric pressure between a persistent high over the Azores and an equally prevalent low over Iceland. Using charts and maps, Fagan showed how the NAO governs the position and strength of the North Atlantic storm track and thus Europe's rainfall. The NAO index shows the constant shifts in the oscillation between these two areas, with a high NAO index indicating low pressure around Iceland

As a meteorologist, I take special interest in books such as this which relate weather to the bigger picture of world history and events. Sometimes, however, it seems as though authors (be it intentionally or simply through ignorance) sacrifice scientific integrity in favor of a more interesting story or to avoid confusing the reader, or fall into the related trap of getting really bogged down in a quagmire of equations and esoteric scientific terminology which have little place in a book written for the lay-person.This book successfully avoids both of these traps. The author (an archaeologist) clearly demonstrates that he went to considerable effort to understand the science behind what he is discussing, and he effectively relates the climate fluctuations experienced in the "Little Ice Age" to the evolution of society at the time. This is done in a manner that anyone can understand, as he explains important concepts in a very readable fashion embedded within the text. Also, he is careful to note how little we still really understand about climate change, and shies away from the "Chicken Little" doomsday sensationalism so prevalent today. This said, he also notes that climate change is definitely an issue we should be concerned with, as one way or another it will have a strong impact on our future and should not be ignored.Overall, I found this to be a very interesting book that read very well and recommend it to anyone interested in how weather can affect human life and world history. Fellow meteorologists out there may wish for a few more technical details, but hey, that's what the AMS journals are for. :-)

Since I had found Brian Fagan's book Floods, Famines and Emperors very thought provoking, I decided to read his more recent book The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850. I was not disappointed. Professor Fagan carries on a tradition (which he freely admits was discredited in the past but is now enjoying a renaissance because of newer information) of viewing history through the eyes of a paleoclimatologist. Much of what he had said in the earlier text, namely that many of mankind's major social and cultural transitions have been climate and weather driven, made a good deal of sense to me. Episodes such as the Sea People's invasion of the ancient Levant with the ultimate collapse of the Hittite empire and the reduction of the Egyptian during the late second millennium B.C.E. have long been thought to have been the result of droughts experienced in northern Europe. Similarly the demise of the Moche in Peru, of the Mayan civilizations in Middle America, and of the pueblo cultures in the Southwestern US are believed to have been the result of el Nino/la Nina weather changes, massive rains in the case of the Moche and severe drought in the latter two cases. Although no one would say that any of these historic human changes occurred purely in response to climate, it is abundantly apparent that the economic impact of especially prolonged climate changes on large subsistence level populations tend to leave the more inflexible social systems at great risk. The earlier book described the probable role of el Nino/ la Nina cycles on world climate, while more briefly discussing the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and it's effects. It was also concerned with much earlier cultures. The current book discusses the North Atlantic Oscillation in much greater detail and outlines it's specific effects on the climate and social environment of Europe and North America during more recent times. The material is dealt with in a very clear manner and was not difficult to understand even with my average person's more casual understanding of weather and climate. Because the history is of events in more recent time, especially in the last half of the book, the narrative clearly has greater implications for the modern reader than the earlier book does. The Irish potato famine, for instance, was an event of great social significance whose impact on the modern politics in the United Kingdom and on the population demographics of the United States and Australia continues to this day. Certainly pertinent is the lesson of the political upheavals suffered by European governments in the 18th and 19th centuries. Those that ignored the precariousness of the lives experienced by the bulk of their population, choosing to do little or nothing to alleviate their suffering during famines, did so at their own peril. Those that refused to improve their management of their agricultural and natural environment also suffered more acutely. Even now as over ha

Hasn't the weather been amazing lately? I mean, lately over the past hundred years, since we left the ice age? If you don't think of the weather on this scale of climate, it would be a good idea to take a look at _The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300 - 1850_ (Basic Books) by Brian Fagan. The weather has been amazing during our most recent century, but it is always more or less unpredictable, and has always fascinated people. However, the particular conditions of the Little Ice Age were peculiar, indeed, and we haven't seen anything like them for more than a century.There are plenty strange events described in Fagan's book, things like glaciers which no longer threaten us. It is best, however, at giving a broad view of the Little Ice Age and how it affected history. Fagan does not make the mistake of "climatic determinism," carefully showing how human behavior, economics, as well as climate produced historic changes, but his links to the weather is convincing because he accepts weather as only a partial explanation. His explanations, for instance, of weather's involvement in the Viking retreat, the French Revolution, and the Irish Potato Famine are excellent.Fagan's book makes clear that climate has affected civilization, and that humans have not always handled its changes well. His book is not a polemic about the current warming, but he acknowledges that the carbon dioxide levels and coal burning may have been among the mechanisms that produced it. Since we understand such changes only imperfectly, and since they are best shown in computer models upon which corporations can cast doubt, a surprising number of people think that global warming is not a real phenomenon. Fagan shows that the warming is real, and that our weather these days is greatly different from the Ice Age before. More importantly, he shows that people responded to the changes of the past in often lamentable ways; if ever learning from history was vital to prevent repeating it, we would do well to look at past mistakes.

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.