Book Review - The Little Ice Age

Title - The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850
Author: Brian Fagan

My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review:

Description (Audible): 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.

Description (ChatGPT): Brian Fagan’s The Little Ice Age serves up a frosty historical tale that proves the weather has always been more than just small talk. With vivid storytelling and a scientist’s eye, Fagan unpacks how Europe’s cooler-than-usual weather from 1300 to 1850 froze crops, stoked political unrest, and even shaped the course of wars. If you thought your winter commute was bad, imagine living through crop failures, famines, and freezing rivers—now that's a cold front of history. Fagan's research is solid, his writing sharp, and his ability to tie climate shifts to human drama is downright chilling. A must-read for anyone who thinks the weather doesn't affect the world. Spoiler alert: it does—just ask history.