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 -- The Little Ice Age -- that lasted roughly from A.D. 1300 until 1850. 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. 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. This is a fascinating, original book for anyone interested in history, climate, or the new subject of how they interact.

The evidence for the Little Ice Age, the most important fluctuation in global climate in historical times, is most dramatically represented by the advance of mountain glaciers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and their retreat since about 1850. The effects on the landscape and the daily life of people have been particularly apparent in Norway and the Alps. This major book places an extensive body of material relating to Europe, in the form of documentary evidence of the history of the glaciers, their portrayal in paintings and maps, and measurements made by scientists and others, within a global perspective. It shows that the glacial history of mountain regions all over the world displays a similar pattern of climatic events. Furthermore, fluctuations on a comparable scale have occurred at intervals of a millennium or two throughout the last ten thousand years since the ice caps of North America and northwest Europe melted away. This is the first scholarly work devoted to the Little Ice Age, by an author whose research experience of the subject has been extensive. This book includes large numbers of maps, diagrams and photographs, many not published elsewhere, and very full bibliographies. It is a definitive work on the subject, and an excellent focus for the work of economic and social historians as well as glaciologists, climatologists, geographers, and specialists in mountain environment.

This concise and accessible new text offers original and insightful analysis of the policy paradigm informing international statebuilding interventions. The book covers the theoretical frameworks and practices of international statebuilding, the debates they have triggered, and the way that international statebuilding has developed in the post-Cold War era. Spanning a broad remit of policy practices from post-conflict peacebuilding to sustainable development and EU enlargement, Chandler draws out how these policies have been cohered around the problematization of autonomy or self-government. Rather than promoting democracy on the basis of the universal capacity of people for self-rule, international statebuilding assumes that people lack capacity to make their own judgements safely and therefore that democracy requires external intervention and the building of civil society and state institutional capacity. Chandler argues that this policy framework inverses traditional liberal “democratic understandings of autonomy and freedom “ privileging governance over government “ and that the dominance of this policy perspective is a cause of concern for those who live in states involved in statebuilding as much as for those who are subject to these new regulatory frameworks. Encouraging readers to reflect upon the changing understanding of both state “society relations and of the international sphere itself, this work will be of great interest to all scholars of international relations, international security and development.

Since The Little Ice Age was published in 1988, interest in climatic history has grown rapidly and research in the area has flourished. A vast amount of new data has become available from sources such as ice cores, speleothems and tree rings. The picture that we have of past climates and glacier oscillations has extended further into the past and has become more detailed. However, the knowledge of climate change on the decennial and centennial timescale, to which glacier history can contribute, is scarce and is in demand when attempting to predict future change, especially with regard to global warming. New chapters and material have been included throughout the book, which tend to confirm and elaborate on the conclusions of the first edition. The glacial evidence has been presented in the context of the oceanographic and icecap studies that have provided such exciting results. Little Ice Ages is structured in three parts: Part 1 details the evidence for glacier variations in the last thousand years in different parts of the world and the associated climatic fluctuations. Part 2 brings together the evidence for the timing of glacier variations in the course of the Holocene. Part 3 views the Holocene record in a longer time context, especially as it appears in ice cores, and goes on to consider the likely causes of climatic variability on a Little Ice Age timescale and some of its physical, biological and human consequences. It becomes apparent in Little Ice Ages that the glacier record provides a valuable indication of the nature of climatic fluctuations on the land areas of the globe. The record points to periods of cooling which were more numerous and less continuous than was believed to be the case twenty years ago. There appears to be no single explanation for the variability. Volcanism, solar variability and ocean currents have all played their parts and prediction continues to present many problems. Some authorities have thrown doubt on the existence of the Little Ice Age, but Little Ice Age makes the case for a climatic sequence that can usefully be called the Little Ice Age and which had predecessors occurring at intervals of several centuries throughout much of the last 10,000 years.

First published in 2004. Since The Little Ice Age was published in 1988, interest in climatic history has grown rapidly and research in the area has flourished. A vast amount of new data has become available from sources such as ice cores, speleothems and tree rings. The picture that we have of past climates and glacier oscillations has extended further into the past and has become more detailed. However, the knowledge of climate change on the decennial and centennial timescale, to which glacier history can contribute, is scarce and is in demand when attempting to predict future change, especially with regard to global warming. New chapters and material have been included throughout the book, which tend to confirm and elaborate on the conclusions of the first edition. The glacial evidence has been presented in the context of the oceanographic and icecap studies that have provided such exciting results. Little Ice Ages is structured in three parts: • Part 1 details the evidence for glacier variations in the last thousand years in different parts of the world and the associated climatic fluctuations. • Part 2 brings together the evidence for the timing of glacier variations in the course of the Holocene. • Part 3 views the Holocene record in a longer time context, especially as it appears in ice cores, and goes on to consider the likely causes of climatic variability on a Little Ice Age timescale and some of its physical, biological and human consequences. It becomes apparent in Little Ice Ages that the glacier record provides a valuable indication of the nature of climatic fluctuations on the land areas of the globe. The record points to periods of cooling which were more numerous and less continuous than was believed to be the case twenty years ago. There appears to be no single explanation for the variability. Volcanism, solar variability and ocean currents have all played their parts and prediction continues to present many problems. Some authorities have thrown doubt on the existence of the Little Ice Age, but Little Ice Ages makes the case for a climatic sequence that can usefully be called the Little Ice Age and which had predecessors occurring at intervals of several centuries throughout much of the last 10,000 years.