Nature's Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present
Written by Philipp Blom
Narrated by Jonathan Keeble
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Although hints of a crisis appeared as early as the 1570s, the temperature by the end of the sixteenth century plummeted so drastically that Mediterranean harbors were covered with ice, birds literally dropped out of the sky, and "frost fairs" were erected on a frozen Thames-with kiosks, taverns, and even brothels that become a semi-permanent part of the city.
Recounting the deep legacy and far-ranging consequences of this "Little Ice Age," acclaimed historian Philipp Blom reveals how the European landscape had subtly, but ineradicably, changed by the mid-seventeenth century. While apocalyptic weather patterns destroyed entire harvests and incited mass migrations, they gave rise to the growth of European cities, the emergence of early capitalism, and the vigorous stirrings of the Enlightenment. A timely examination of how a society responds to profound and unexpected change, Nature's Mutiny will transform the way we think about climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond.
Philipp Blom
Philipp Blom was born in 1970 in Hamburg and grew up in Detmold, in Germany. After university studies in Vienna and Oxford, he obtained a D.Phil in Modern History. He started writing at Oxford and published a novel as well as occasional journalism, moving on to London, where he worked as an editor, translator, writer and freelance journalist, contributing to newspapers, magazines and radio programmes in Great Britain, the US, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, and France. In 2001, Philipp Blom moved to Paris to concentrate on his books. In 2007 he settled in Vienna, where he continues to write nonfiction, such as Nature's Mutiny, as well as fiction, films, and occasional journalism. He presents a cultural discussion programme on Austrian national radio and has lectured on history, philosophy, and cultural history in Europe, the US, and South America. He is married to Veronica Buckley, who is also a writer.
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Reviews for Nature's Mutiny
44 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wery well written, with many interesting details. Pity all these do not allow a more optimistic conclusion.
Nonetheless I will review the author other writings too.
BTW: since 2020 March we did not have new reviews! We need them! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nature's Mutiny by German historian Philipp Blom is reminiscent of a Jared Diamond book. He asks a question about our modern day and looks back on history for parallels to test a 'natural experiment'. Blom asks, if the climate is rapidly changing, how does society respond? He picks the Little Ice Age as it as the last time the climate changed rapidly, about 2 C colder during a roughly 100 year period. He chooses Europe because of the documentation available and his professional background. What he proposes is society become more mercantile orientated because of increased globalization which was a survival response to the failed harvests and other conditions that made life more difficult, requiring expanded trade to bring in resources needed. Capitalism, rationalism, science were all responses to a more difficult environment. Of course it is not that simple there were contingencies specific to Europe, other places in the world didn't respond this way. So it's hard to say what one can really conclude from Blom's investigation. Nevertheless it is an interesting overview of various aspects of the 17th century, anything by Blom is worth reading.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There are basically two ways to approach this book, which is essentially an extended essay. On one hand, you can basically treat it as a potted history of how the Little Ice Age of the subtitle was a hammer that broke the Medieval mindset and opened the way to the Enlightenment and market values that, twenty or so years ago, seemed to represent the "end of history." However, Blom, who wrote this book as a way of understanding how societies respond to global climate changes, suggests that the our much-celebrated market and rationalist values should be understood as a very manicured version of the intellectual ferment of the "long" seventeenth century, and that the way forward is going to depend on setting aside cultural triumphalism and engaging in some hard-headed engagement with the world as it is, which would entail, at the very least, a more modest understanding of our personal place in the world. Otherwise Humanity would seem to be in store for another war of all against all.
1 person found this helpful