The Little Ice Age cover art

The Little Ice Age

How Climate Made History 1300-1850

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Thousands of incredible audiobooks and podcasts to take wherever you go.
Immerse yourself in a world of storytelling with the Plus Catalogue - unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Little Ice Age

By: Brian Fagan
Narrated by: Michael Langan
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

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

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Attacking Ocean cover art
Climate Chaos cover art
The Great Warming cover art
Humans versus Nature cover art
The Year Without Summer cover art
The Dissolution of the Monasteries cover art
Water in Plain Sight cover art
Floating Coast cover art
We Are the Weather Makers cover art
Hannibal cover art
The Burgundians cover art
1066: The Year That Changed Everything cover art
Global Crisis cover art
Perilous Bounty cover art
Humans of Climate Change cover art
Tree Story cover art
All stars
Most relevant
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A good listen for anyone interested in the variables of weather and the political implications.

Bless the weather

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well-narrated (other than a slip or two in pronunciation.

The content is excellent, sufficient detail to satisfy or prompt further research, while moving at sufficuent pace as to remain interesting and engaging.

Clear and concise

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.