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The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History Paperback – March 11, 2014

4.0 out of 5 stars 439

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Like Winchester's Krakatoa, The Year Without Summer reveals a year of dramatic global change long forgotten by history

In the tradition of
Krakatoa, The World Without Us, and Guns, Germs and Steel comes a sweeping history of the year that became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. 1816 was a remarkable year―mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1816.

In the U.S., the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer led to famine, food riots, the transformation of stable communities into wandering beggars, and one of the worst typhus epidemics in history. 1816 was the year
Frankenstein was written. It was also the year Turner painted his fiery sunsets. All of these things are linked to global climate change―something we are quite aware of now, but that was utterly mysterious to people in the nineteenth century, who concocted all sorts of reasons for such an ungenial season.

Making use of a wealth of source material and employing a compelling narrative approach featuring peasants and royalty, politicians, writers, and scientists,
The Year Without Summer by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman examines not only the climate change engendered by the volcano, but also its effects on politics, the economy, the arts, and social structures.


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Editorial Reviews

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“Many people in North America and Europe believed that the freezing summer of 1816 foretold the end of the world. Unaware that the invisible ash cloud that spread round the world from a volcanic eruption in Indonesia caused the aberrant weather, they thought the sun was dying. William Klingaman vividly portrays the myths and realities of that terrifying season.” ―James M. McPherson, Pulitzer-Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Battle Cry of Freedom, Crossroads of Freedom, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, and For Cause and Comrades

“When a volcanic eruption on a Pacific island swathed the earth with droplets, producing freakish weather that ruined harvests all over the world, how did people react? William and Nicholas Klingaman tell us how the year without summer affected an astonishing variety of people on different continents, including rulers and peasants, working families, Jane Austen and Mary Shelley. A book like nothing you've read before.” ―
Daniel Walker Howe, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation Of America

“William K. Klingaman's groundbreaking work will forever alter the way we view the years immediately following the War of 1812. Beautifully written in prose that will excite both expert and layman, it tells the remarkable story-in superb detail-of how in April 1815 the severest volcanic eruption in 2000 years on Mount Tambora disrupted the earth's weather profoundly, and with it, the politics, economics, arts, and religious beliefs of an era. In every respect this is a marvelous book, impossible to put down.” ―
George C. Daughan author of 1812: The Navy's War

“Klingaman's vibrant narrative carries us from Indonesia to Ohio as it traces the global effects of the Mt. Tambora eruption.
The Year Without Summer is as dexterous at explaining the science of climatology as it is at describing how the endless rain in Geneva figured into Byron's poetry or how New Englanders saw God's wrath in the summer snowstorms that froze their fields.” ―Steven Biel, author of Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster

“Massive volcanic cataclysm, ash and global cold, failed harvests, social unrest, and Frankenstein to boot: Klingaman paints an intriguing, multilayered picture of the year when global climate went mad and a lot of people went hungry.
The Year Without Summer is a sobering reminder of humanity's vulnerability to natural disasters--in a world with far fewer inhabitants than today.” ―Brian Fagan, author of Beyond the Blue Horizon, The Great Warming and Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind

“Intrigued by the weather? You will be after reading
The Year Without Summer. Writing with verve and flair, author William Klingaman shows how in 1816 an event in the Far East dramatically influenced weather patterns in Europe and the United States, causing summer blizzards, flooding, and deadly famines. This is a disquieting, but important, story that throws light on global weather patterns and our precarious hold on life.” ―John Ferling author of Independence, Almost a Miracle, and Setting the World Ablaze

The Year Without Summer puts Krakatoa in the shade. This is an erudite, vivid, and fast-paced narrative of the extraordinary consequences of the largest and deadliest known volcanic eruption in history. Linking the stories of a cast of royal, political and literary characters - Louis XVIII, Madison, Napoleon and Byron among them - as well as laborers, seafarers and rabble-rousers, William and Nicholas Klingaman help us visualize and understand how a remote Indonesian volcano helped to foment social, economic and political turmoil on both sides of the Atlantic.” ―Clive Oppenheimer, author of Eruptions That Shook the World and Volcanoes

“A thought-provoking account describing the far-reaching and long-lasting effects on Europe and America of a single volcanic eruption in the tropics. Tambora's 1815 outburst caused changes in weather patterns with negative impact on agriculture, resulting in famine and disease. Riots and political discord followed and worsened the socio-economic consequences of the Napoleonic wars in Europe. Such an aftermath provides a warning for what our living earth may have in store for the future.” ―
Dr. Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, author of Volcanoes in Human History and Earthquakes in Human History

The Year Without Summer shows how a volcanic eruption in Indonesia transformed life in the United States and Europe. William and Nicholas Klingaman have placed 1816 on the list of pivotal years in history and have provided a compelling account of the mushrooming effects of a natural disaster. This is environmental and world history at its finest.” ―Louis P. Masur, author of The Civil War, 1831, and The Soiling of Old Glory

“A great book about one of the least known and most devastating natural disasters in history.” ―
Theodore Steinberg, author of Acts of God and Down to Earth

“The Klingamans lay out the scientific details of the disaster in a lucid, easily digestible manner. They also effectively integrate the natural calamities into a narrative that includes the political and social milieu of Europe and North America. This is an engrossing work that illustrates the fragility of societies when confronted with sudden and severe disruption of weather patterns.” ―
Booklist

“An intriguing sidelight on the effects of climate change.” ―
Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

WILLIAM K. KLINGAMAN has taught at the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland. He is the co-author The Year Without Summer with Nicholas P. Klingaman, as well as the author of narrative histories of the years 1918, 1929 and 1941.

NICHOLAS P. KLINGAMAN holds a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Reading, where he is now a research scientist. He is the co-author of
The Year Without Summer with William K. Klingaman. His work focuses on investigating the effects of climate change on tropical weather patterns.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition (March 11, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250042755
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250042750
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.55 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 out of 5 stars 439

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4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
439 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2024
Growing up in New England, I often heard of the year without a summer, but other than a brief description maybe a decade (or two) ago, this is the first good treatment of the subject I have come across.
One person found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2024
This is an interesting book, in that it describes the various impacts of the volcanic eruption on weather, the various reactions of people (including nascent scientists), and the political fallout from the resulting famines. It also touches on the impact on various historical figures.

But ultimately there is a lot of very repetitive information. To the point that the book becomes almost boring in places.

There are also a lot of unanswered questions. The impression is given that the impact on crops and fruit trees was devastating--a complete loss. But people are nevertheless worried about imports and exports. Too little data is given about where crops did NOT fail. When crops fail, where can seed for the following year be obtained? How do farmers dare to plant the following year, not knowing if the weather will again betray them? How many fruit trees were killed outright?

Overall, this book ends up focusing more on numbers than on people. Death tolls from famine are mentioned only in passing, and there is no comparison to other famines in European history.

Three and a half stars, rounded up for being a solid collection of information, if not all that might be desired.
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2023
Adequate description of the after results of a Pacific eruption on global populations. A bit wordy - did not think Lord Byron's sexual relationship with his half sister Augusta did much to advance the description of the volcanic event as were other examples the author included. It is difficult to write a book length account on a remote event in a remote part of the world that had few documented contemporary chroniclers. On the positive side, the book was packaged with unusual care and arrived in a timely manner.
6 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2024
This book gave details to the year. I had no idea that things were really this bad. Maybe the worst was that people had no Idea of the cause.
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2024
The volcano exploded. It was a bad year for crops, as what seems like 1000 people attested in this book. It was cold. It rained. It was cold, and it snowed. It was cold, and there were hailstorms. Crops were destroyed and prices went up in Europe and the United States. Nothing about what was going on in Asia or anywhere near the eruption.

I felt like I was reading nothing but weather reports. Except when the authors diverge to tell us that someone found Lord Byron to be a bore.

Stick with Simon Winchester's "Krakatoa."
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2023
Great story, one of many that proves nature is in control of the climate, not man.
7 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2023
I am reading books relevant to climate change. This is a very interesting and informative book about how the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo changed the world’s climate for the next 2 years and affected millions of lives. The authors are ideally qualified to write it, one being a professor of history and the other having a PhD in meteorology. The text is mostly in the history vein, but I found the explanations of how the volcano’s ejecta traveled around the globe and altered the climate to be informative and easily understood. The recital of the effects of the eruption on people and communities around the world was memorable, although padded in a few places with tangential anecdotes (especially in the passages that track Lord Byron and the Sheeleys trip through Europe). Inevitably, as the months roll by and cold spells persist in many locations, the text does become somewhat repetitive, but, having by that point grasped the substance of the book, I skimmed rapidly to the end, and it was a quick read.
7 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2014
I have been fascinated by this subject for a long time and bought the book in spite of the mediocre reviews. The reviews are right. The book does not know what it wants to be. Too much meteorological minutiae to be a book about living through the time period. Simple comparisons to climate phenomena such as the Little Ice Age would have sufficed. You get two pages of atmospheric descriptions and then a few more pages of political lead up to those years. Am sure those areas get extended coverage because there are solid reference sources as opposed to writing a book about the unique conditions under which people lived and how it changed their lives and their countries. But in the end it is not an enjoyable book for the general reader. It is such a unique time in our recent history that calls out for a compelling narrative and this is not it.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Celso Garcia
5.0 out of 5 stars calidad y confianza en el proveedor
Reviewed in Spain on October 23, 2019
Es un libro usado pero en perfectas condiciones. Bear Books es un proveedor para confiar.
A. Volk
3.0 out of 5 stars A book that really focuses on a single year in history
Reviewed in Canada on March 17, 2015
This book isn't quite what I expected and I didn't really enjoy it. So why 3 stars? Because it's wasn't bad, it just wasn't very enjoyable. I was hoping for a book that gave me more details and depth about the specific effects of the volcanic eruption on global climate. There are some of those details, but this is largely a condensed global newspaper for the year 1816 (as well as some of 1815 and 1817). It really is a historical snapshot that covers major events as well as individual statements from North American and Europe (most of the rest of the world isn't mentioned). As such, I found it partly a history lesson about events that I wasn't really interested in. I didn't care about the US political scene at the time, only about how peoples' lives were affected by the volcanic aftermath. It was interested to read about how unrest in Europe was affected by the poor summer, but it appeared to be equally (if not more so) affected by the end of war.

The writing is fairly good, so it's largely a matter of whether the subject matter is something that will appeal to you. If you want an in-depth historical review of 1816 that includes some meteorological context, then this is a 5-star book. If you're looking for a detailed outline of how a volcano affects global climates, then this is a 2 to 3 star book. Given that I fall somewhere in the middle I'm going with 3.5 stars that I'm conservatively rounding down to 3.
5 people found this helpful
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Derek Pike
5.0 out of 5 stars The Year Without Summer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 23, 2013
This is a remarkable book! If you ask yourself why you should read a book about the effects of climatology on social history - don't hesitate to read this book. The climatology is pitched at a very accessible level, and the social history is presented through the eyes and experiences of real people - from Presidents to peasants. I was totally absorbed.

The Klingamans - father & son - have styles which merge and complement each other almost seamlessly. They never forget that they are telling a story for those of us who know little or nothing of this volcanic eruption, and the link to its huge and lasting impact on the whole of our planet.
3 people found this helpful
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John McCarthy
4.0 out of 5 stars History often repeats - be ware!
Reviewed in Australia on February 20, 2016
A most educational story. A lot was happening around the globe in 1815-16 and the book captures many of the characters that were influenced by the bleak weather that followed the eruption. One wonders how our model world where air travel is the sole impact of a volcanic event would cope with another Tambora. Not well I expect!
JaneTruelightbooks
3.0 out of 5 stars I never knew the volcano's eruption had such a bad affect on so many places
Reviewed in Canada on July 17, 2016
Fascinating detail. I never knew the volcano's eruption had such a bad affect on so many places.
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