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The Little Ice Age

How Climate Made History 1300-1850

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The Little Ice Age

By: Brian Fagan
Narrated by: Michael Langan
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About this listen

The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today’s global warming.

Only in the last decade have climatologists developed an accurate picture of yearly climate conditions in historical times. This development confirmed a long-standing suspicion: that the world endured a 500-year cold snap, a little ice age, that lasted roughly from AD 1300 until 1850.

With its basis in cutting-edge science, The Little Ice Age offers a new perspective on familiar events. Renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan shows how the increasing cold affected Norse exploration; how changing sea temperatures caused English and Basque fishermen to follow vast shoals of cod all the way to the New World; how a generations-long subsistence crisis in France contributed to social disintegration and ultimately revolution; and how English efforts to improve farm productivity in the face of a deteriorating climate helped pave the way for the Industrial Revolution and hence for global warming.

This is a fascinating, original book for anyone interested in history, climate, or the new subject of how they interact.

©2020 Brian Fagan (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing Anthropology Atmospheric Science Earth Sciences Environment Science
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I was hoping for at least some insight into this but basically it’s just a series of facts listed one after the other. I like history. I couldn’t finish this. Thank God it was free.

Dreadfully dull

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I had come across the mini ice age previously in other books on the medieval world, and although it touched on the subject the details were lacking. so this book proved to be the indepth window into the subject I'd been missing. Very well researched and covers every aspect of the causes and impacts . Fab book.

history, geography, meteorology, sociology, economics and epidemiology all in one book.

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A good listen for anyone interested in the variables of weather and the political implications.

Bless the weather

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I don't want to be mean, but I really struggled to pay attention. It sounded interesting from the description, but it was just so boring. The narrator sounds like a parody news presenter, the way his voice goes up and down. The book is mostly bits of social history from around the Western world, that are related to extreme weather. Most of the important stuff is tacked on the end in the final chapter, where he the author claims that we don't even know whether human activity is a cause of climate change (ok...) and, as if he had never said that, goes on to mention the importance of reducing our production of greenhouse gases. Perhaps if I read the print version I might be able to get more into it, who knows!

So dull

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This book was quite a tough listen.
The narrator seemed to spend his time talking in an unusual sing-song way, emphasising certain consonants and constantly changing the register of his voice.

As for the content, the book was supposed to be about the Little Ice Age, but spends a large part of the time discussing different periods in history.

A wealth of assumptions are given to the listener, along with some openly contradictory assertions.

The author is a geologist yet makes a number of unsupported claims about climate ”science”.

I’m glad this book was free. I’d have requested a refund otherwise.

Interesting assumptions

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