The Little Ice Age

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The groundbreaking history of how climate change transformed the world

“Fagan shows in this wonderful book how vulnerable human society is to climatic zigzags.”―New Scientist

The Little Ice Age tells the fascinating story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history. Using sources ranging from the business records of medieval monasteries to modern chemical analysis of ice cores, renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan reveals the five-hundred-year cold snap that began in the fourteenth century. As Fagan shows, the increasingly cold and stormy weather dramatically altered fishing and farming practices, and it shaped familiar events, from Norse exploration to the settlement of North America, and from the French Revolution to the Irish potato famine to the Industrial Revolution. History demonstrates that climate change does not come in gentle, easy stages—and its influence on human life is profound.

A lively and groundbreaking history, The Little Ice Age offers essential context for understanding today’s age of global warming.