Climate change in context

Fagan makes use of the latest resources of climatology, including tree ring samples and deep cores extracted from glaciers, lakes and oceans, to reveal how the earth has been warming up and cooling down for thousands of years. The period of global warming of the last 15 000 years is without precedent, and it set the conditions which enabled civilisation to arise. It is our 'long summer'.

As well as allowing readers an insight into the forces which shaped the lives of our distant ancestors it provides a historical context in which to understand the global warming we are experiencing today. It starts with the unimaginably hostile period of the late ice age in 1800 BC, and moves on to cover times including the thousand year drought and the era of the Celts and Romans. What is clear from all this is that we face an uncertain climatic future.