Rating: 
Summary: Good Overview of the Effect of Climate on Some Civilizations
Review: "The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization" looks at a number of cultures and at evidence from scientific discoveries to see how climate changes affected the development of the cultures. We get to see how glaciers, El Nino, the aridity of the Sahara, monsoons, the flow of the Gulf Stream, and the Coriolis effect in the Santa Barbara Channel made some places Edens and others unlivable. The peoples covered include the Cro-Magnons, the earliest Americans, early Egyptians, early Mesopotamians, Mayans, the Chumash Indians, the Anasazi, the Linearbandkeramic culture, Celts, Romans, the Tiwanaku culture around Lake Titicaca, the displaced farmers of the Black Sea litoral, and the people of the Sahara Desert. There are many examples of how people adapted to a certain climate, increased their poplulation by relying on certain approaches to managing water and food production, and then got into trouble because a prolonged El Nino or release of glacial meltwater or volcanic eruptions caused the society to no longer be able to support a large, urbanized population. Migratory foraging skills seem necessary, as does population control and wise management and planning.
The author did not provide a unified world-view but relied on specific, researched examples to get his point across. There was almost no mention of the world stretching between Iran, China, and Australia. Eastern North and South America get little mention. Perhaps their stories are less researched or dramatic.
The author ducked two issues that will eventually become important.
First, in the Old Testament, the Lord sends bad weather from time to time to punish various people. If it turns out that these punishments were weather systems that devestated even more people further away (E.g., a bad monsoon affects both the Nile and the Indus/Ganges populations.), then there will need to be some religious explanations.
Second, the author wants current politicians to take action against the release of greenhouse gases to stem global warming. The examples in the text are not precedents. In general, warming was associated with increased food production. So it would have been helpful if the author could have mentioned the sorts of issues that global warming would trigger and the sorts of things that could be done to avoid problems. Reverting to migratory foragers is not an option.
All in all, this was a useful gathering of historic and climateological data to increase our awareness of our vulnerability.
Rating: 
Summary: Drowning and drought
Review: Anyone still believing scientists lack a sense of humanity should read this. Although the title suggests yet another climate study, this isn't a simple analysis of our weather systems. Fagan places the human condition at the centre of his narrative. It's not enough to present more evidence of global warming. In fact, he's adamant about the causes of current climate change being a "side debate". He's much more concerned about how many climate shifts humanity has experienced and how we reacted to them. His theme is our adaptability to weather changes in the past and whether we can garner lessons for the future. Establishing a scenario beginning twenty thousand years ago, Fagan lines out three Acts for the peopling of the Americas. The first is in "the primodial homeland", Ice Age Siberia, followed by conditions revealed about the Beringian Land Bridge of fifteen thousand years ago. The final act takes us to the chaotic Atlantic and the European environment. Conditions were rarely stable as "the glaciers were never still". Their "irregular dance" kept conditions variable and human response was adapt or perish. Canadian fresh meltwater interrupted the Gulf Stream letting harsh cold envelope Europe. Human adaptibility often meant improvements on older technologies or innovative ones to cope with the result of climate change. Spears, later with atlatls - "spear throwers" to improve range and accuracy, then bows, were significant tools. Yet, one of the most momentous inventions was the needle - still in use almost unchanged today. This device could produce layered clothing, a major adaptive step in times of abrupt weather changes. Weather changes can be due to single events - even those occurring at intervals like El Nino. A critical solitary event happened around 6200 BCE with the "implosion" of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The cascade of fresh water into the North Atlantic created drought conditions throughout Europe and the eastern Mediterranean while raising ocean levels. This rise later led to a catastrophe when the Mediterranean found an outlet to the Euxine Lake. The inflow created the Black Sea, driving people west into the Danube Valley and changing human society in the area drastically. Continuing fluctuations brought further challenges to increasing populations. Stable food supplies provided by agriculture reduced mobility and fed population growth. The cost was people tied to the land and a new vulnerability to climate change. Fagan's example of this new situation is found in the history of a California people known as the Chumash. These coastal people had deep ties with family members living inland. The arrangement kept food supplies relatively stable through exchange networks. This continuum expanded over a large area resulting in concomitant population growth. When expansion was no longer feasible, war substituted for exchange systems. Not a violent people, the conflicts were the result of environmental pressure on food resources. A drastic social change took place around 1150 AD. The lost networks were restored through a new arrangement. The family system was shelved for a new oligarchy of powerful community leaders working cooperatively with meagre, but sustaining food stocks. While the Chumash remained vulnerable to climate vagaries, they didn't starve as in the past. Fagan stresses that vulnerability has been built into modern society. Civilisation is a high-stakes game, and the planet is the banker. Most of the cards we played in the past are now in the discard pile. Mobility is not an option when the planet is so thoroughly occupied. New technologies will not provide new lands submerged by rising seas nor blighted by drought. If the Gulf Stream fails again, as it has in the past, it will be all Europe faced with the need for a new home. Where? A Europe covered in ice will produce drought throughout western Asia and likely beyond. It isn't the cause of climate change that requires examination, but what must be done to deal with, Fagan urges. The "stewardship" of resources successfully adopted by some societies must be invoked again. That requires a knowledgeable population, briefed by readers of this book. This is far from a "should read" book - it is a "must read" for us all. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating:
Summary: Drowning and drought
Review: Anyone still believing scientists lack a sense of humanity should read this. Although the title suggests yet another climate study, this isn't a simple analysis of our weather systems. Fagan places the human condition at the centre of his narrative. It's not enough to present more evidence of global warming. In fact, he's adamant about the causes of current climate change being a "side debate". He's much more concerned about how many climate shifts humanity has experienced and how we reacted to them. His theme is our adaptability to weather changes in the past and whether we can garner lessons for the future. Establishing a scenario beginning twenty thousand years ago, Fagan lines out three Acts for the peopling of the Americas. The first is in "the primodial homeland", Ice Age Siberia, followed by conditions revealed about the Beringian Land Bridge of fifteen thousand years ago. The final act takes us to the chaotic Atlantic and the European environment. Conditions were rarely stable as "the glaciers were never still". Their "irregular dance" kept conditions variable and human response was adapt or perish. Canadian fresh meltwater interrupted the Gulf Stream letting harsh cold envelope Europe. Human adaptibility often meant improvements on older technologies or innovative ones to cope with the result of climate change. Spears, later with atlatls - "spear throwers" to improve range and accuracy, then bows, were significant tools. Yet, one of the most momentous inventions was the needle - still in use almost unchanged today. This device could produce layered clothing, a major adaptive step in times of abrupt weather changes. Weather changes can be due to single events - even those occurring at intervals like El Nino. A critical solitary event happened around 6200 BCE with the "implosion" of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The cascade of fresh water into the North Atlantic created drought conditions throughout Europe and the eastern Mediterranean while raising ocean levels. This rise later led to a catastrophe when the Mediterranean found an outlet to the Euxine Lake. The inflow created the Black Sea, driving people west into the Danube Valley and changing human society in the area drastically. Continuing fluctuations brought further challenges to increasing populations. Stable food supplies provided by agriculture reduced mobility and fed population growth. The cost was people tied to the land and a new vulnerability to climate change. Fagan's example of this new situation is found in the history of a California people known as the Chumash. These coastal people had deep ties with family members living inland. The arrangement kept food supplies relatively stable through exchange networks. This continuum expanded over a large area resulting in concomitant population growth. When expansion was no longer feasible, war substituted for exchange systems. Not a violent people, the conflicts were the result of environmental pressure on food resources. A drastic social change took place around 1150 AD. The lost networks were restored through a new arrangement. The family system was shelved for a new oligarchy of powerful community leaders working cooperatively with meagre, but sustaining food stocks. While the Chumash remained vulnerable to climate vagaries, they didn't starve as in the past. Fagan stresses that vulnerability has been built into modern society. Civilisation is a high-stakes game, and the planet is the banker. Most of the cards we played in the past are now in the discard pile. Mobility is not an option when the planet is so thoroughly occupied. New technologies will not provide new lands submerged by rising seas nor blighted by drought. If the Gulf Stream fails again, as it has in the past, it will be all Europe faced with the need for a new home. Where? A Europe covered in ice will produce drought throughout western Asia and likely beyond. It isn't the cause of climate change that requires examination, but what must be done to deal with, Fagan urges. The "stewardship" of resources successfully adopted by some societies must be invoked again. That requires a knowledgeable population, briefed by readers of this book. This is far from a "should read" book - it is a "must read" for us all. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating:
Summary: For any non-erudite, science-oriented layman
Review: Being as in the title, I found this book most engrossing as it followed the millenia, bonding weather and humanity together in a fully believable journey. It gave me many details and reminders about the progress of man, in every age and era. It should be read by (or to, nearly) all ages. It is an excellent orientation.
Rating:
Summary: Often spellbinding
Review: 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. If some of us once comforted ourselves with notions of shinning up the hunting rifle, returning to nature in our tent during such a calamity - forget it. When societies - stretched to the limit - falter under climate change, stress in the psyche comes to the fore in ways never imagined, even (or especially) in abrasive group-oriented societies like ours. Tribal suspicions lie waiting for such opportunities.
Making light of Postmodernists without trying to, Fagan notes the same human response by cultures separated by thousands of years, different continents, "meaning and value" systems; "In both the Old World and the New, human societies reacted to climate traumas with social and political changes that are startling in their similarities." Universal human truths after all.
"But if we've become a supertanker among human societies, it's an oddly inattentive one. Only a tiny fraction of people on board are engaged with tending the engines. The rest are buying and selling goods among themselves, entertaining each other... Those on the bridge have no charts or weather forecasts and cannot even agree that they are needed; indeed, the most powerful among us subscribe to a theory that says storms don't exist... And no one dares to whisper in the helmsman's ear that he might consider turning the wheel." So ends a well written, at times spellbinding account of our past and warning to our present, ignored at our own peril.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Many Errors!
Review: Fagan grew careless in checking over his manuscript. Where I possess some expertise I caught numerous errors, and therefore don't trust any of the information in this book, although I found the subject interesting and worthy of a good popular treatment. The author treated the Medieval era sloppily. Druids did not "compete" with Christianity through the 5th century AD. Most of them were murdered by the Romans, the survivors losing influence. The Celts (their elite, the only ones who counted) had adopted Christianity by the 3rd century, and spread out all over Europe, even to Italy, as missionaries and teachers. Perhaps Fagan is confusing Druidism, a pagan religion, with the brilliant and tolerant Pelagian "Celtic" Christianity that flourished from about the 3rd to the 8th centuries, survived in enclaves -- possibly, as some claim, influencing dissenting Protestantism many centuries later. There were plenty of European pagans in the 5th century, but they resided in the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic lands, which weren't converted till later. Where does he get the idea that Gothic architecture began as early as the 10th century, which was the heyday of the Romanesque style? Gothic architecture appeared tentatively in the mid-12th century, but the Gothic era spanned the late 12th century through the 15th, with the 13th century as its most creative period. Even more worrisome than the careless Medieval research are Fagan's maps and illustrations. First of all, I recognized some maps and drawings from other books but can't find them cited in the credits. Perhaps because several were taken from other sources, there's a frequent lack of correspondence between text and picture, or simply an incomplete drawing. Examples: On p. 16 Western Spain is covered in dark gray, but there's no legend for dark gray. On p. 81, in a section on the Kebarans, I looked in vain to find the name "Kebara" on the map. Worst of all, on p. 163 the illustration shows the phallic Egyptian god "Mut." The text names this god as "Min." There are many other graphics with similarly irksome problems. I remember the first edition of MacNeil's ENGLISH LANGUAGE having similar problems with poorly proofed maps and illustrations, and a corrected edition being hastily published. Fagan needs to do the same with this book, or his reputation will suffer.
Rating:
Summary: Too Many Errors!
Review: Fagan grew careless in checking over his manuscript. Where I possess some expertise I caught numerous errors, and therefore don't trust any of the information in this book, although I found the subject interesting and worthy of a good popular treatment. The author treated the Medieval era sloppily. Druids did not "compete" with Christianity through the 5th century AD. Most of them were murdered by the Romans, the survivors losing influence. The Celts (their elite, the only ones who counted) had adopted Christianity by the 3rd century, and spread out all over Europe, even to Italy, as missionaries and teachers. Perhaps Fagan is confusing Druidism, a pagan religion, with the brilliant and tolerant Pelagian "Celtic" Christianity that flourished from about the 3rd to the 8th centuries, survived in enclaves -- possibly, as some claim, influencing dissenting Protestantism many centuries later. There were plenty of European pagans in the 5th century, but they resided in the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic lands, which weren't converted till later. Where does he get the idea that Gothic architecture began as early as the 10th century, which was the heyday of the Romanesque style? Gothic architecture appeared tentatively in the mid-12th century, but the Gothic era spanned the late 12th century through the 15th, with the 13th century as its most creative period. Even more worrisome than the careless Medieval research are Fagan's maps and illustrations. First of all, I recognized some maps and drawings from other books but can't find them cited in the credits. Perhaps because several were taken from other sources, there's a frequent lack of correspondence between text and picture, or simply an incomplete drawing. Examples: On p. 16 Western Spain is covered in dark gray, but there's no legend for dark gray. On p. 81, in a section on the Kebarans, I looked in vain to find the name "Kebara" on the map. Worst of all, on p. 163 the illustration shows the phallic Egyptian god "Mut." The text names this god as "Min." There are many other graphics with similarly irksome problems. I remember the first edition of MacNeil's ENGLISH LANGUAGE having similar problems with poorly proofed maps and illustrations, and a corrected edition being hastily published. Fagan needs to do the same with this book, or his reputation will suffer.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but could have been alot better
Review: I recommend this book more as a reference book when reading about different regions of the world during specific time periods than trying to read this book from beginning to end. I've read several world history books, including Guns Germs and Steel, and this one by far was the most boring read. Some of my complaints are as follows:
1) The science behind the earth's weather patterns and how scientists try to deduce the weather at different times in the history of earth could have been elaborated further with only an extra 5-10 pages.
2) The author includes too many details in some places and too few in others. He concentrates on a specific time period in detail and then jumps a few millenia.
3) This is a minor complaint, but the author doesn't believe in the 'Big Kill'theory. He believes that humans had a very minor role in the extinction of large mammals, and instead attributes it to the changing weather. However, weather has always been in flux, and an unprecedented ( in the past million years) number of species died at a time perfectly coinciding with the spread of Human hunters around the globe.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but could have been alot better
Review: I recommend this book more as a reference book when reading about different regions of the world during specific time periods than trying to read this book from beginning to end. I've read several world history books, including Guns Germs and Steel, and this one by far was the most boring read. Some of my complaints are as follows:
1) The science behind the earth's weather patterns and how scientists try to deduce the weather at different times in the history of earth could have been elaborated further with only an extra 5-10 pages.
2) The author includes too many details in some places and too few in others. He concentrates on a specific time period in detail and then jumps a few millenia.
3) This is a minor complaint, but the author doesn't believe in the 'Big Kill'theory. He believes that humans had a very minor role in the extinction of large mammals, and instead attributes it to the changing weather. However, weather has always been in flux, and an unprecedented ( in the past million years) number of species died at a time perfectly coinciding with the spread of Human hunters around the globe.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it only if you must.
Review: I went to the trouble of reading this book because of the reputation of the author, who is editor of the Oxford Companion to Archeology. However, after the first two or three chapters, I resorted to rapid skimming in order to mitigate the repeated insults Prof. Fagan dealt to my intelligence.
We learn many things from this book: That Fagan has sailed the Bay of Biscay and the Gulf Stream, seen the wall paintings of Niaux, flown over France, viewed the Mesopotamian desert before Saddam built a military airport near it, driven a Land Rover through the Egyptian Desert, wandered Chaco Canyon in the twilight, visited the Great Plaza at Tikal a number of times, and heard Mozart's Requiem in St. Paul's Cathedral. This would be very interesting if we were reading a travel diary, but does nothing to advance his thesis. It is clearly "filler", designed to make the book more marketable to a general audience.
Lakes and rivers always "teem" with fish. Droughts, floods and other "environmental shocks" are always "devastating". Ancient merchants are "watchful", and their ships are "battered". Gorges are always "deep", and palaces "rich". Climatic change is always "breathtaking". Cliche follows cliche, until one's eyes droop.
The faults of Fagan's substantive material are much graver. Of course, the weather affects human activity, and always has. One need do no more than watch the Weather Channel to learn that. Relating remote climate change to remote changes in human civilization is another matter. Fagan uses the conditional tense incessantly and qualifies every conclusion. Authorities "believe". We can "only speculate". We shall "never know". We "cannot be sure".
After wading through 250 pages of impressions and speculations, we come to Fagan's final conclusion: "Climate has helped shape civilization, but not by being benign." I think the average citizen watching television is already aware of this. What else does Fagan have to offer us? "There's no reason to assume that we've somehow escaped this shaping process." The average reader would no doubt agree, even if he or she had missed the worst Florida hurricane season in 50 years while on an archeological dig in the Gobi Desert.
He comes to his punchline in the last paragraph of the book, comparing modern civilization to a supertanker, asserting that we are becoming increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic climatic change, and that the people in charge are ignoring the problem. His last sentence is a highly melodramatic elaboration of this theme: "And no one dares to whisper in the helmsman's ear that he might consider turning the wheel."
What are we to think of all this? Fagan asserts that human activity has contributed to global warming, but nowhere gives any of the details that would substantiate this belief. He gives a much more believable explanation for climate change by citing the effect of changes in the Earth's orbital parameters and their effects on light levels. But his overall presentation points to only one really firm conclusion: climate change is inevitable, and is due to multiple variables that are very poorly understood in our current state of knowledge. Whether the Earth's climate is going to become cooler or warmer is anyone's guess. It will no doubt do both at different times, with multiple unpredictable effects.
While Fagan makes vague assertions about global warming, he seems to be intelligent enough to realize that the data to support the human contribution to it are weak. He implies that "the Helmsman", (no doubt George W. Bush) could do something about it, but refuses. Fagan no doubt knows that whatever action human beings take is likely to have very little effect on the kind of catastrophic climate change he describes throughout his book, but he and his publisher also know that that conclusion doesn't conform with the current "zeitgeist", and therefore won't sell books. So, he implies, hints, surmises, but in the end comes up only with a gloomy vagueness. One of course wonders, why bother? Well, I guess professors gotta eat, just like everyone else.
I prefer Mark Twain's more honest and MUCH more succinct analysis: "Everyone complains about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it."
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