Ronald B. (jack-n-ivy-chinese) - , reviewed on 7/1/2011 + 10 more book reviews

I felt this book didn't live up to its promise. Only three cases are examined in any detail: the fall of Sumer, the decline of the Mayan civilization, and the effect of the Little Ice Age on the Norse settlements in Greenland. This seems like picking the examples to fit the thesis that climate's effects on human societies are much stronger than is generally believed. There is some good information about weather proxies, and how they are used as evidence of past climate change, but there is also too much bouncing around from topic to topic, and that makes the author's argument rather hard to follow. The author's thesis might just be too massive to cover in a popular book of this size. Maybe more detail on one time period might have made for a more convincing read. Still, it give 3 out of 5 stars.
A far better book is Bad Land, By Jonathan Raban.

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