The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization

For more than a century we've known that much of human evolution occurred in an Ice Age. Starting about 15,000 years ago, temperatures began to rise, the glaciers receded, and sea levels rose. The rise of human civilization and all of recorded history occurred in this warm period, known as the Holocene. Until very recently we had no detailed record of climate changes during the Holocene. Now we do. In this engrossing and captivating look at the human effects of climate variability, Brian Fagan shows how climate functioned as what the historian Paul Kennedy described as one of the deeper transformations of history -- a more important historical factor than we understand.

Author: Brian Fagan
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 12/29/2004
Pages: 284
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.63lbs
Size: 8.01h x 5.36w x 0.82d
ISBN13: 9780465022823
ISBN10: 0465022820
BISAC Categories:
- Science | Environmental Science (see also Chemistry | Environmental)
- Science | Earth Sciences | Meteorology & Climatology
- History | Civilization

About the Author
Brian Fagan is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he has written many internationally acclaimed popular books about archaeology, including The Little Ice Age, The Great Warming, and The Long Summer. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.