For more than a century we’ve known that much of human evolution occurred in an Ice Age. Starting about fifteen thousand years ago, temperatures began to rise, the glaciers receded, and sea levels rose. The rise of human civilization and all of recorded history occurred in this warm period, known as the Holocene. Until very recently we had no detailed record of climate changes during the Holocene.
Now we do. In this engrossing and captivating look at the human effects of climate variability, Brian Fagan shows how climate functioned as what the historian Paul Kennedy described as one of the “deeper transformations” of history—a more important historical factor than we understand.
As the middle of six children, Michael Langan quickly carved out his space in the group; he was the storyteller. Out in the real world, he would gravitate to office and administration roles until he quit his job in 2020, deciding to become a full-time voice-over artist and a background artist in film and television productions. When he's not on set, in his home studio, or being forcibly dragged across rugby fields by his dog Oisin, he can be found in his kitchen, setting off the fire alarm on a regular basis with his attempts at cooking and baking.