Tambora - Gillen D'arcy Woodseeders: 17
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Tambora - Gillen D'arcy Wood (Size: 8.95 MB)
Description When Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, it unleashed the most destructive wave of extreme weather the world has witnessed in thousands of years. The volcano's massive sulfate dust cloud enveloped the Earth, cooling temperatures and disrupting major weather systems for more than three years. Amid devastating storms, drought, and floods, communities worldwide endured famine, disease, and civil unrest on a catastrophic scale. On the eve of the bicentenary of the great eruption, Tambora tells the extraordinary story of the weather chaos it wrought, weaving the latest climate science with the social history of this frightening period to offer a cautionary tale about the potential tragic impacts of drastic climate change in our own century. The year following Tambora's eruption became known as the "Year without a Summer," when weather anomalies in Europe and New England ruined crops, displaced millions, and spawned chaos and disease. Here, for the first time, Gillen D'Arcy Wood traces Tambora's full global and historical reach: how the volcano's three-year climate change regime initiated the first worldwide cholera pandemic, expanded opium markets in China, set the stage for Ireland's Great Famine, and plunged the United States into its first economic depression. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster, inspired by Tambora's terrifying storms, embodied the fears and misery of global humanity during this transformative period, the most recent sustained climate crisis the world has faced. Bringing the history of this planetary emergency grippingly to life, Tambora sheds light on the fragile interdependence of climate and human societies, and the threat a new era of extreme global weather poses to us all. ** Review "Persuasively entertaining. . . . If not the first, Mr. Wood's book is by far the best on the subject, and most comprehensive. What Mr. Wood has achieved in Tambora is to uncover, collect, and collate a great deal of new scientific evidence to bolster his case."--Simon Winchester, *Wall Street Journal* "The greatest volcanic eruption of modern times occurred in 1815 on the small island of Tambora in the East Indies. It spawned the most extreme weather in thousands of years. In what contemporaries described as the 'year without a summer,' its immense ash cloud encircled and cooled the Earth. While historians have mostly ignored the decades of worldwide misery, starvation, and disease that followed, Wood (The Shock of the Real), professor of English at the University of Illinois, remedies this oversight, combining a scientific introduction to volcanism with a vivid account of the eruption's cultural, political, and economic impact that persisted throughout the century."--Publishers Weekly, starred review "Wood broadens our understanding beyond the 'year without a summer' cliché. . . . Wood's command of the scientific literature is impressive, and more than matched by his knowledge of world history during this horrific episode of catastrophic global climate change. With the mass of information he has assimilated, he skillfully weaves a tale full of human and cultural interest . . ."--Ted Nield, *Nature* "The book is fluently-written, tightly constructed around a single event and a short time period, filled with interesting anecdotes about both well-known and obscure people, places, and evetns, and connects less-than-obvious dots. . . . [F]ascinating and easy-to-read. . . . Tambora is also interesting as a timely reminder of how interconnected our world is."--Peter Gordon, *Asian Review of Books* "[Tambora's] portentous lessons on the consequences of global climate disturbances, is told with particular élan and a flair for the dramatic in Gillen D'Arcy Wood's Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World. . . . Wood uncovers for the reader the worldwide reaches of the eruption and makes it a watershed date in the timeline of human history."--William O'Connor "Even Westerners who were aware of the occasional spewings of Italy's Mount Vesuvius (much smaller eruptions that didn't change climate at all) had no idea what a volcano on the other side of the globe was capable of doing. Today, Wood . . . can put it into a worldwide context of environmental and social upheaval."--Nancy Szokan, *Washington Post* From the Inside Flap "Gillen D'Arcy Wood's Tambora takes us on a fascinating journey through the world of 1815-17, when particles from the greatest volcanic eruption since the Ice Age lingered high in the atmosphere. This meticulously researched and beautifully written book ventures far beyond tales of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein to document an apocalyptic global catastrophe that affected millions of people living as far afield as the Arctic and North America. Wood has crafted a powerful, definitive, and thought-provoking narrative."--Brian Fagan, author of *The Attacking Ocean* "Stimulating and engaging, Tambora provides an excellent overview of the worldwide repercussions that followed the eruption of a single tropical volcano. Weaving together an abundance of newly gathered historical information, Wood emphasizes humanity's disquieting vulnerability to natural events. This book represents a marvelous piece of work."--Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, coauthor of *Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Major Eruptions* "Wood makes the compelling case that the global effects of the Tambora eruption have been largely underappreciated--and the strength of his argument rests on the accumulation of evidence. Tambora is a rude awakening to the potential societal consequences of these fascinating geological events."--Guilherme Gualda, Vanderbilt University "Tambora is a thought-provoking and original synthesis by an esteemed scholar that draws together vast amounts of previously unrelated material."--James Rodger Fleming, author of *Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control* Sharing Widget |