The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization First Edition Edition

by Brian Fagan (Author)

41 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0465022816

ISBN-10: 0465022812

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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.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; First Edition edition (December 24, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465022812
ISBN-13: 978-0465022816
Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #423,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #366 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Rivers
- #422 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Climatology
- #460 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Weather

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Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars

5 star		49%
4 star		22%
3 star		10%
2 star		12%
1 star		7%

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68 of 71 people found the following review helpful

Excellent, epic overview of climate and human history

By Tim F. Martin on May 16, 2005

Format: Paperback

_The Long Summer_ by Brian Fagan is in essence a follow up of his excellent earlier work, _The Little Ice Age_, a book that explored the effect of a particular climatic episode on European civilization between the years 1300 and 1850. Fagan expanded his focus greatly in _The Long Summer_ as in this work he analyzed the effects of various climatic events since 18,000 B.C. on the course of Stone Age life, early farming societies, and the evolution of civilizations in Europe, southwest Asia, north Africa, and the Americas, covering climatically-influenced human history from the settlement of the Americas to the origins of the Sumerians to the conquest of Gaul by Rome (which was fascinating) through the end of the Mayan and Tiwanaku civilizations (in Central and South America respectively). As in _The Little Ice Age_, Fagan dismissed both those who discounted the role climatic change had played in transforming human societies and those who believed in environmental determinism (the notion that climate change was the primary cause of major developments in human civilization).

Fagan provided many examples of climatic change affecting human history. Between 13,000 and 8,000 B.C. Europe became covered in forest thanks to warming climates and retreating glaciers. This climatic change - and resulting alteration in the ecology of the region - lead to the extinction of the large and medium-sized herd animals that were the favored prey of the Cro-Magnons (such as the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, giant deer, and reindeer) and their replacement by smaller, generally more dispersed game like red deer, wild boar, and aurochs.Read more ›

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50 of 54 people found the following review helpful

Portrait of our own future?

By Atheen on March 27, 2004

Format: Hardcover

The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization is another of Brian Fagan's volumes on the interaction of climate and human history. (Others I have read are the Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850, and Floods, Famines and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations). As with the others, this book chronicles the changes in climate throughout the globe and notes the changes effected in the human condition. Whether there is actually a direct correlation between the two or not it would be difficult to really prove since historic events are nonrepeatable, but the frequency with which major changes in human behavior have occurred when climate has shifted is certainly very suggestive. Like most such claims, however, there is probably more to the reality of the situation than is apparent from this distance. His topic, however, is not without significance for our own world, so I highly recommend reading it!
The author discusses El Nino, the Southern Oscillation, and the Gulf Stream "conveyor belt" and the effects of the introduction of increased fresh, cold water into it as he does in his other books. A more complete discussion of these phenomena was given in Little Ice Age, however, so if the reader is a little confused by the more limited introduction in this book or is simply curious about them, he/she should definitely read LIA for clarification.
Some of the author's points were not new to me. In particular I had read a collection of articles on the concept of human evolution as driven by continental drift and its effect on the Gulf Stream and climate. I have also recently read a book (Secrets of the Sands: The Revelations of Egypt's Everlasting Oasis), which discusses climate change and lifestyle, in this instance that in Egypt and its Oases.Read more ›

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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

Often spellbinding

By Brett Williams on February 19, 2005

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Fagan adds a new dimension to the failure of civilizations outside value reversals and psychological self-destruction posed by Brooks Adams, Spengler or de Tocqueville. Data from a variety of sources, not available until now, correlates with history the impacts of climate on civilization. Fagan opens with a curious personal experience - his small sailboat on treacherous Spanish waters, passed by cargo-laden hulks seemingly oblivious to nature's furry. This introduction becomes a wonderful analogy for the "scale of our vulnerability". As we complicate society and "tame" nature we also massively increase the calamity of nature's accumulating response. The Sumerian city of Ur becomes our first tour and what a tour it is. Fagan hits his stride, crystallizing his point when Sumerians are his centerpiece. Conceived around 6000 BCE as a collection of villages already employing canals for irrigation, the region suffered a monsoon shift driving Sumerians to increase organization through innovation. Hence, invention of the city by 3100 BCE. Volcanic induced climate shift eventually ran the Sumerian ship aground, as similar shifts did for others, not only starving the populous but dissolving faith in their gods, kings and way of life. But, Fagan writes, "The intricate equation between urban population, readily accessible food supplies and the economic, political and social flexibility sufficient to roll with the climatic punches has been irrevocably altered." "If Ur was a small trading ship, industrial civilization is a supertanker." And supertankers split in half now and then. The ability to simply return to farming or hunter gathering is now lost given that so many of us occupy the landscape, competing with everyone else under the same conditions.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

I was disappointed to see that it had been thoroughly covered in ...

I was disappointed to see that it had been thoroughly covered in notes as I had planned to give it as a gift. Read more

Published 8 months ago by Nancy R. Wilde

Would recommend and use this provider again

Quick service and item as described. Would recommend and use this provider again.

Published 11 months ago by d.r.

Five Stars

Brian Fagan's books are always a great education.

Published 11 months ago by John Wolfe

Sloppy writing for a "scientific" publication

Sloppy writing for a "scientific" publication... As mentioned on other reviews. I also object to the amount of UN-documented speculation about the lives and motivations of... Read more

Published 16 months ago by bob coyle

In Perfect Condition!

I was surprised at the appearance of the books because they were actually new like I had just went to the store to buy them. Read more

Published 18 months ago by Otani Linn Laster

Great book

I have found this book very interesting. Can't wait to read others by the same author. Helps me understand what may have happened.

Published on February 3, 2013 by Sarah B. Sanneman

Education

These are books for my daughters education so I do not know how to rate these books. For BA degree

Published on January 23, 2013 by CG, Arizona

Not reliable

I am a paleoaracheologist, and far as I can tell, in many cases in regards to the noted period, the book is erroneously misleading. Read more

Published on December 26, 2012 by Avi Bach

Even more errors.

Problems with the maps have been noted in other reviews (Western Brazil becomming Bolivia, Columbia becomming Ecuador) but what I most enjoyed was Newfoundland located on the same... Read more

Published on August 4, 2012 by Bob Croft

Superficial and repetitious

I was quite disappointed by this book. Fagan repeats words, phrases, and concepts again and again. He throws out speculative notions without justification, and his grasp of some... Read more

Published on October 15, 2011 by BVLenci