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 enlarge | Author: Brian M. Fagan
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £4.36
You Save: £5.63 (56%)
New (32) Used (10) from £4.30
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 9447
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0465022723
Dewey Decimal Number: 551.694
EAN: 9780465022724
ASIN: 0465022723
Publication Date: December 6, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: New book. WE USE PRIORITY AIRMAIL ONLY for books from the USA. UK & European delivery is 7-10 days. Over 2,000,000 books sold to Amazon customers
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-6 of 6 | | « PREV | | |
 A fascinating insight into Medieval climatic changes October 10, 2001
24 out of 27 found this review helpful
This is in many ways a frustrating book. The subject matter is fascinating - the climatic changes of the last 1500 years and their effect on history. Brian Fagan is Professor of Archaeology at the University of California, and is well qualified for the task, but his account leaves the reader feeling curiously unsatisfied. There are many good features of the book, the style is easy and the examples are well chosen, but the connection between the examples and the scientific evidence is not well presented. The account is based on evidence from ice cores, tree rings, volcanic eruptions, historical accounts, wine harvests and instrument records. Yet virtually no attempt has been made to link the documentary observations to scientific data. Instead the reader is left hanging, and is forced to take on trust such assertions as 'tree rings and ice cores chronicle the ever changing climate through the terrible years of the Black Death and Hundred Years War'.The book is largely concerned with Europe and the Atlantic and documents the cold period which extended from the great famine of 1315 to about 1850. Much fascinating evidence is presented, including an account of the abandonment of the Greenland settlements, the late wine harvests in France,the southward migration of the cod shoals, and an account of the eruption of Mount Tambora in Java which produced 'the year without a summer', but there is little in the way of an analysis of the causes of the Little Ice Age. The quality of the maps and diagrams is very disappointing. Some are simplistic to the point of irrelevance, and the reconstructed weather maps are largely speculative. A fascinating book, but one which could have been considerably improved with the inclusion of a bit more science.
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