Read Nature Mutiny How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present Philipp Blom Books
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An illuminating work of environmental history that chronicles the great climate crisis of the 1600s, which transformed the social and political fabric of Europe.
Although hints of a crisis appeared as early as the 1570s, the temperature by the end of the sixteenth century plummeted so drastically that Mediterranean harbors were covered with ice, birds literally dropped out of the sky, and “frost fairs†were erected on a frozen Thames―with kiosks, taverns, and even brothels that become a semi-permanent part of the city.
Recounting the deep legacy and far-ranging consequences of this “Little Ice Age,†acclaimed historian Philipp Blom reveals how the European landscape had suddenly, but ineradicably, changed by the mid-seventeenth century. While apocalyptic weather patterns destroyed entire harvests and incited mass migrations, they gave rise to the growth of European cities, the emergence of early capitalism, and the vigorous stirrings of the Enlightenment. A timely examination of how a society responds to profound and unexpected change, Nature’s Mutiny will transform the way we think about climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond.
40 black and white illustrationsRead Nature Mutiny How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present Philipp Blom Books
"Philipp Blom's history of the Little Ice Age of the long seventeenth century is a masterwork illuminating innumerable interconnections. I was an AP World History teacher for a decade, and Blom's insights and skill at depicting the links between climate change and economic and philosophical developments almost inspire me to want to go back into the classroom.
The Little Ice Age is a well recognized period of cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, beginning around 1300 and lasting until about 1800. Blom's focus is on the most severe period, from 1570 to the early eighteenth century. There are many theories but no universally recognized cause for the Little Ice Age, but its effects are well known and indisputable. Blom acknowledges that the impact of the Little Ice Age was felt around the planet, but he chooses to focus on Europe in order to take advantage of the many written records to be found there.
Nature's Mutiny is made up of three large sections broken into a series of shorter, but fascinating, examinations of such varied subjects as the rise of Amsterdam as a trading center, the growth of Enlightenment thought, changes in military hardware and fighting techniques, the philosophies of Spinoza, Bayle, Voltaire, and others, the rise and decline of the Sabbatai Zevi cult, and many more vignettes. Blom explains how all of these are interconnected and traceable to the weather changes which reshaped the culture and subsequent history of seventeenth century Europe.
I found Blom to be a fascinating and challenging author throughout Nature's Mutiny. Perhaps the most intriguing section is his Epilogue, in which he discusses the ways human societies had to adapt as the weather and climate shifted, then draws implications for twenty-first century societies facing similar challenges. Nature's Mutiny is an important study which needs to be given serious attention. Brian Fagan's earlier work The Little Ice Age, as well as his The Long Summer and Floods, Famines, and Emperors, provide more insights into historical climate change."
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Nature Mutiny How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present Philipp Blom Books Reviews :
Nature Mutiny How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present Philipp Blom Books Reviews
- If you are interested in learning how the Little Ice Age impacted life in the Seventeenth Century (much less how it might be impacting life now), you will find little of that here. The author barely mentions the Ice Age. This book is mainly a somewhat disjointed series of vignettes for the most part covering the intellectual advances that took places during the time period in question. Well, of that there is little doubt. You don't have to be an advanced history major to be aware of that. But if that is your interest, there are much better books out there on the subject. But as to how this intellectual development was impacted by the Little Ice Age, about the only evidence the author seems to put forward is that they both happened at the same time. And as any beginning (first week, actually) student in statistics can tell you, correlation does not mean causation. The author seems to want you to take it purely on faith that the intellectual developments of the Seventeenth Century were impacted by the Ice Age, without presenting any other evidence than that the potato replaced grain crops in northern Europe. Curious. And quite frankly, I'm not even convinced that the Ice Age was the prime mover in that. Plainly put, there's not much here.
- Philipp Blom's history of the Little Ice Age of the long seventeenth century is a masterwork illuminating innumerable interconnections. I was an AP World History teacher for a decade, and Blom's insights and skill at depicting the links between climate change and economic and philosophical developments almost inspire me to want to go back into the classroom.
The Little Ice Age is a well recognized period of cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, beginning around 1300 and lasting until about 1800. Blom's focus is on the most severe period, from 1570 to the early eighteenth century. There are many theories but no universally recognized cause for the Little Ice Age, but its effects are well known and indisputable. Blom acknowledges that the impact of the Little Ice Age was felt around the planet, but he chooses to focus on Europe in order to take advantage of the many written records to be found there.
Nature's Mutiny is made up of three large sections broken into a series of shorter, but fascinating, examinations of such varied subjects as the rise of Amsterdam as a trading center, the growth of Enlightenment thought, changes in military hardware and fighting techniques, the philosophies of Spinoza, Bayle, Voltaire, and others, the rise and decline of the Sabbatai Zevi cult, and many more vignettes. Blom explains how all of these are interconnected and traceable to the weather changes which reshaped the culture and subsequent history of seventeenth century Europe.
I found Blom to be a fascinating and challenging author throughout Nature's Mutiny. Perhaps the most intriguing section is his Epilogue, in which he discusses the ways human societies had to adapt as the weather and climate shifted, then draws implications for twenty-first century societies facing similar challenges. Nature's Mutiny is an important study which needs to be given serious attention. Brian Fagan's earlier work The Little Ice Age, as well as his The Long Summer and Floods, Famines, and Emperors, provide more insights into historical climate change. - This book is interesting but is only tangentially related to the little ice age. It ends in a polemic about climate change in our current world.
- This book looks at the European consequences of the Little Ice Age. The book looks at the social, political and economic impact of the period, how upheavals in harvests gave rise to religious conflicts and in turn spurred the beginnings of the Enlightenment. A good read for the period, worth re-reading again.
- If you fight you way through the "history" part of this book, you will learn a little but not enough to compensate for the atrocious ending - a diatribe about global warming and "the fiction of the free market" among other things. The author would have been better served to stay in the 16th century.
- I recommend this to anyone interested in history, in humans, in the future, or survival. Blom, brings together divergent threads from a complex period in Western history to form a fascinating and frightening picture of social change. Change propelled, possibly caused by, certainly exasperated by climate and weather patterns of the little ice age. The parallels to current environmental and climatic circumstances, and social upheavals are striking as well as terrifying.
I found it disturbing, enlightening, fascinating and impossible to put down. If you read no other book this year, read this one. Makes one rethink how we should be living and the West's current approach to our home, Earth.
