The Year without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History : Klingaman, William K: : Libros The Year without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History
William K Klingaman ´ 6 Summary
Whether one is a meteorologist, economist, historian, or advocate for the most marginalized. This is a very readable fascinating look at how the fates of our earth, our activity upon it, and the universe, such as our immediate galaxy, are so tightly interwoven. It helped explain some of my readings on politics and words migrations, and on the brutally, self centered and simplistic reactions of governments to phenomena beyond their control The Year without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History 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! The Year without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History An easy to read but detailed story of the year 1816 and the events in America and Europe, taking place at the worst time with countries still recovering from war it brings home the poverty and misery that was caused (as well as the action and inaction of governments), and leaves you very thankful that you aren't living then. The Year without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History 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 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. The Year without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History 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 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 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. The Year without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History