Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations - Softcover

Fagan, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465005306 ISBN 13: 9780465005307

Publisher: Basic Books, 2009

Synopsis

In 1999, few people had thought to examine the effects of climate on civilization. Now, due in part to the groundbreaking work of archaeologist Brian Fagan, climate change is a central issue. Revised and updated ten years after its first publication, Floods, Famines and Emperors remains the definitive account of how the world's best-known climate event had an indelible impact on history.

About this title

Review:

Before 1997, the name "El Niño" was unknown to most ordinary folks. Meteorologists, oceanographers, commercial fishers, and weather buffs knew of this periodic climatic anomaly, but to the everyday person on the street, a few degrees' difference in the Pacific Ocean's temperature was irrelevant. Then one of the most powerful El Niños in recorded history caused bitter freezes in Europe, brutal snowstorms and floods in western North America, and deadly droughts throughout the South Pacific. People sat up and took notice as a relatively tiny change in oceanic temperature resulted in death and destruction in many parts of the globe.

Brian Fagan examines the social effects of El Niño and other powerful weather phenomena in Floods, Famines and Emperors. He gives plenty of examples of how cultures have adapted to stressful weather and the ways in which climatic alterations have changed the course of history. From droughts in ancient Egypt to monsoons in India, the far-reaching effects of meteorology's most cantankerous kid have deeply affected the way humans live in the world. Illustrated with useful maps and diagrams, Floods, Famines and Emperors is a clear, fascinating look at an aspect of climate studies--and of El Niño--mostly ignored by science. --Therese Littleton

From the Publisher:

Praise for this title

"Every so often, advances in scientific understanding require reconsideration of the historic record. Brian Fagan brings recent climatology to bear on history with admirable and entirely convincing skill. A landmark book." --William H. McNeill, author of Plagues and Peoples and The Global Condition: Conquerors, Catastrophes, and Community

"Clear, precise and thoroughly engaging...Drawing on an encyclopedic range of sources -- archaeology, geology, history and ethnography -- Fagan immerses the reader in a lively anecdotal portrait of the relationship between major climatic events and major historical events in both ancient and modern times. This is a must-read for laypersons, serious scholars and students alike." --Thomas D. Dillehay, University of Kentucky

"Brian Fagans engaging new book is a masterful synthesis of ocean, atmosphere and human dynamics. It chronicles the commanding interplay of climatic change and the creation and collapse of great civilizations. This is compelling reading for the global audience of a warming world." --Michael E. Moseley, author of The Incas and Their Ancestors

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0465005306
• ISBN 13: 9780465005307
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368