How the earth’s previous global warming phase, from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, reshaped human societies from the Arctic to the...
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Jan 17, 2009
Yael
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From the tenth to the fifteenth centuries AD, the earth experienced a rise in temperature that changed climate worldwide. Subtle shifts in the environment that accompanied that change had far-reaching effects on human society, culture, economics, and daily life the consequences of which have reverberated down all the centuries since.
In Western Europe, longer summers gave bountiful harvests and population growth which in turn led to a tremendous cultural flowering. Great cathedrals More...
In Western Europe, longer summers gave bountiful harvests and population growth which in turn led to a tremendous cultural flowering. Great cathedrals More...
Aug 21, 2011
Meadows13
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Enjoyment of this book (and its companion, The Litte Ice Age)doesn't reallly doesn't depend on whether you think that global climate change is human-induced or a natural phenomenon. Both books provide an interesting and global overview about what climate change means to human civilizations that are based on specific growing seasons, rainfall amounts, and hungry populations (which includes all of us). Both the Great Warming and the Little Ice Age most probably were caused by that natural climatic
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May 15, 2011
Zach
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Brian Fagan a retired professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote “The Great Warming” which provides an exquisite reasoning to this debate. Disregarding the “chatterers and doomsday sayers,” Fagan states that “almost none of these self-proclaimed prophets bother to look back at climate change in earlier centuries and millennia; except for politically charged discussions as to whether the world was warmer a thousand years ago than it is today (Preface xvii, Fa
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Dec 02, 2010
Alex
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Fagan, Brian. “The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations” (Bloomsbury Press, New York 2008)
Fagan reveals a variety of effects on the global Medieval Warm Period from the abandonment of Pueblo Bonito and Angkor Wat structures due to drought to the increased farm yields in Europe due to predictable moderate weather patterns. Fagan navigates through a web of archeology and the latest climate based research to paint a picture of a time period where the ent More...
Fagan reveals a variety of effects on the global Medieval Warm Period from the abandonment of Pueblo Bonito and Angkor Wat structures due to drought to the increased farm yields in Europe due to predictable moderate weather patterns. Fagan navigates through a web of archeology and the latest climate based research to paint a picture of a time period where the ent More...
Oct 05, 2009
Dave
rated it: 
I have to say that I found this book to be incredibly boring, but I did force myself to finish it. In my mind, if you're already having to force yourself to finish by chapter 2, the book probably isn't worth it.
I felt like the author was extremely intelligent and there were nuggets of truly fascinating history I had never known before throughout the book. And I think I have a better grasp of global climate and how interdependent regional climates are. And his little vignettes from ea More...
I felt like the author was extremely intelligent and there were nuggets of truly fascinating history I had never known before throughout the book. And I think I have a better grasp of global climate and how interdependent regional climates are. And his little vignettes from ea More...
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Jun 19, 2009
Terry
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Fascinating book especially if you enjoy history and culture. Explains how various civilizations were affected by the medeival warming years (10th to 15th centuries). Extensive bibliography and references for the technocrats with the "085" version in the narrative which makes for easy and understandable reading. Booklist review: A prequel to the author's fascinating The Little Ice Age (2001), a history of climate's influence on civilization from 1300 to 1850, Fagan's work queries t
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Apr 16, 2009
Gordon
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Like Guns, Germs and Steel, which is Jared Diamond’s masterpiece, The Great Warming is one of those grand sweeping books that covers centuries of civilizations around the planet. To summarize: it’s about global climate, and the winners and losers a warmer climate creates. When the planet gets warmer, most places get drier. Then it gets complicated. And not very cheerful.
The Great Warming focuses on the Medieval period from about 800-1300. It starts with Western and Northern Euro More...
The Great Warming focuses on the Medieval period from about 800-1300. It starts with Western and Northern Euro More...
Nov 25, 2009
Melissa
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Very readable, even more so than THE LITTLE ICE AGE which seems to be written for a more specialized audience and appears to be much more focused on Europe -- understandably so, since records of climate change are much more extensive in Europe and reach farther back, than anywhere else in the world. This book tries to use the existing data (in the form of archives, ice cores, tree rings, coral reefs, etc.) on climate from all over the world and compares the events -- as much as they are known -
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May 31, 2009
Julia
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An interesting book on the effects of global warming - a thousand years ago. While some areas of the world benefited, (Europe and the Arctic for example,) other areas of the world suffered massive drought, collapse and population decline.
About a thousand years ago, the earth's climate warmed a little. Fagan links various world events to this "Medieval Warming Period", including the collapse of the Mayan civilization and Angkor Wat, the push to colonize the last uninhabite More...
About a thousand years ago, the earth's climate warmed a little. Fagan links various world events to this "Medieval Warming Period", including the collapse of the Mayan civilization and Angkor Wat, the push to colonize the last uninhabite More...
Sep 05, 2010
Carolyn
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I don't give many 5 star ratings to books. They pretty much have to be transformative in some way. They have to lead me to new insights and new paradigms. This one does. He describes the effects of the a period of global warming called the Medieval Warm Period, which transformed Europe and the Arctic in beneficial ways but brought devastation to the American Southwest, South America, Asia, Africa, and much of the rest of the world. His treatment of the topic is well-researched and well-written a
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Apr 17, 2009
Monte
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Global warming is hardly new; in fact, the very long-term trend began about 12,000 years ago with the end of the Ice Age. Anthropologist Fagan (The Little Ice Age) focuses on the medieval warming period (ca. 800-1300), which helped Europe produce larger harvests; the surpluses helped fund the great cathedrals. But in many other parts of the world, says Fagan, changing water and air currents led to drought and malnutrition, for instance among the Native Americans of Northern California, whose key
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Nov 20, 2008
Sam
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I am an anal reader with a fixation on finishing any book I start, no matter how painful it may be.
I made it less than halfway through Brain Fagan's "The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations."
The book focuses on the period in the late Middle Ages known, in Europe, as the Great Warming due to increasing temperatures which allowed higher crop yields and contributed to the advent of the Renaissance. Fagan argues that this period of More...
I made it less than halfway through Brain Fagan's "The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations."
The book focuses on the period in the late Middle Ages known, in Europe, as the Great Warming due to increasing temperatures which allowed higher crop yields and contributed to the advent of the Renaissance. Fagan argues that this period of More...
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Apr 27, 2008
Evan
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A fascinating look at the Medieval Warming period that includes not only Europe, but just about every part of the world. Fagan presents various examples of how the warming period (which was not a consistent warmth, but a period of cyclical warmth resulting from, among a few things, El Nino/La Nina changes.) The resulting analysis is convincing if not a bit repetative, since most of the areas he describes (Mexico, Peru/Chile, Africa, India & China) all suffer from droughts while Europe and Northe
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Mar 21, 2009
james
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This is a fine book on the subject of (yawn) global warming.
BUT WAIT: it's about the global warming which took place from roughly 1000-1300 in Europe, and similar years in the rest of the world. The author has also written another book about the little ice age which lasted until the middle of the 19th century.
BUT WAIT: it's about the global warming which took place from roughly 1000-1300 in Europe, and similar years in the rest of the world. The author has also written another book about the little ice age which lasted until the middle of the 19th century.
Aug 07, 2008
Barry
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This is a book that suffers from its strengths. Fagan is a scientist; he doesn't indulge in conjecture. He frequently admits that there is no way to know details from nearly a thousand years ago. There are a raft of footnotes. All of which go a long way to reassure the reader that this is thoughtful, well-considered book.
Unfortunately, it swings into overly-technical analyses at times. Fagan tries to balance this off by creating little scenarios to give some atmosphere, these ten More...
Unfortunately, it swings into overly-technical analyses at times. Fagan tries to balance this off by creating little scenarios to give some atmosphere, these ten More...
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Nov 18, 2009
Historical accounts of the period of global warming during the middle ages and its effect on developing Europe and its' colonies. Really good, if you like that sort of thing.
Jul 03, 2010
The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations by Brian Fagan (no date)
Aug 08, 2011
Sherwestonstec
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might be a good book, but couldn't be read past the first chapter!
Oct 11, 2011
joy
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loved the first half, and then had to take it back to the library. i'll try this one again. it's fascinating.
UPDATE:
read this again after The Greenlanders made me curious to know more about the brief period of european settlement on that island during the middle ages. still fascinating. note! this is not a political "global warming" book in any normal sense. it does have modern implications, but the topic is centuries long past. More...
UPDATE:
read this again after The Greenlanders made me curious to know more about the brief period of european settlement on that island during the middle ages. still fascinating. note! this is not a political "global warming" book in any normal sense. it does have modern implications, but the topic is centuries long past. More...
Jun 17, 2008
Tanya
rated it:
Interesting concept - informative though at times disorganized. It was clear that the author was redefining his thesis as he wrote the book, which made the earlier chapters feel disjointed from the latter. He attempts to tie the seemingly contradictory details together in the conclusion, but he never gave me the clarity I wanted. Still, very worth reading for its relevancy to today's issues.
Sep 18, 2008
Brad
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An interesting historical read. Fagan recounts the affect that the climate event known as the Medieval Warming Period had on various civilizations throughout the world. His most relevant, and alarming, conclusion is that the real concern of changing climate is drought and contemporary society must plan now for this eventuality...
Jun 12, 2008
Michelle
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I saw the Fagan on the Daily Show. This, combined with a fascinating New Yorker article a couple of years back on paleoclimatology, made me want to read the book. But, the first 50 pages weren't compelling. Although the material was interesting, it was disorganized and hard to follow. So, I decided not to finish it.
Apr 08, 2010
A.
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If history is anything to go by, prolonged drought is a bigger hazard than flooding if global warming continues. Puts the current changes in perspective and emphasizes how close to the edge we live in the 21st century.
May 25, 2008
Linda
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Very instructive book by one of my old anthropology professors. Important for people to read in order to understand what effect climate change has had on our history without us even realizing it.
Apr 15, 2008
Jane
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I thought the writing was repetitive and a little unorganized and although the content was interesting it was hard to follow along.
Mar 30, 2010
Lauren
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Very informative and educational. I usually don't read nonfiction, but I found this book to be fascinating.
Mar 23, 2008
Saw the author interviewed on the Daily Show. Sounds interesting and frightening.
Mar 09, 2010
Theodora
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very interesting, but very dry. (ha! no pun intended with the weather thing)
Feb 12, 2012
