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How does climate affect history? For the first time we can begin
to answer this question, as Brian Fagan shows us in this lively and original journey
through time and weather. The Little Ice Age, the most
significant climate event of the last millennium, was sandwiched between two warm
spells -- the Medieval Warm Period, which lasted from about 900 to 1300 AD, and
the present global warming, which began in about 1850. Although climatologists
long suspected the broad outlines of these periods, only within the past decade
have they developed an accurate picture of climate conditions in historical times.
They can now determine yearly average temperatures and rainfall, the times and
magnitude of volcanic eruptions, and even how brightly the sun shone centuries
ago. Fagan draws upon this fascinating research to show
how the balmy weather of the Medieval Warm Period made first Iceland, then Greenland,
attractive colonies for Norse expansion. Colder centuries ultimately led to the
abandonment of Greenland, but colder ocean currents also forced vast shoals of
cod, a staple food throughout Europe, into the western Atlantic Ocean. English
and Basque fishing fleets followed the cod down the coast of North America for
centuries, making many temporary landings, before the Pilgrims made a permanent
settlement on Cape Cod, with the mission "to praise God and to fish."
Storms, cold, and rain meant more crop failures for peoples
already living a marginal existence. Until recently it took nine out of every
ten workers in Europe just to grow enough to eat -- and the deteriorating climate
put their world under severe stress. By 1600, when the coldest two centuries of
the Little Ice Age began, a worsening food crisis had been developing for nearly
three centuries. In Flanders and England, the response was an agricultural revolution
that was a prelude to the Industrial Revolution. Ireland adopted the potato, an
import from the Americas, so fervently that by 1800 Irish farmworkers ate almost
nothing else -- two generations later they would suffer the worst famine Ireland
had ever known. France adapted the least of all: It changed
neither its farming methods nor its crops, and the continuing slow decline of
living standards throughout the worst years of the Little Ice Age led to chronic
near-famine and increasing crime, widespread social breakdown, and ultimately
chaos and revolution. The Industrial Revolution, and the Irish Potato Famine were
all partly brought on by climate change. In viewing history
through the lens of climate, The Little Ice Age brings together a huge
range of sources, from the dates of long-ago wine harvests and the business records
of 14th century monasteries to the latest chemical analysis of ice cores. Fagan
weaves this information into a story that will fascinate anyone interested in
history, weather, and how the two interact. Brian
Fagan is America's leading writer on archeology. A Professor of Archeology at
the University of California at Santa Barbara, he is the author of Floods,
Famines and Emperors, The Great Journey, and many other popular works,
and the editor of The Oxford Companion to Archeology. He lives in Santa
Barbara, California. |
