Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors

by Brian Fagan, Nadia Durrani

Overview

A thirty-thousand-year history of the relationship between climate and civilization that teaches powerful lessons about how humankind can survive.
  Human-made climate change may have begun in the last two hundred years, but our species has witnessed many eras of climate instability. The results have not always been pretty. From Ancient Egypt to Rome to the Maya, some of history’s mightiest civilizations have been felled by pestilence and glacial melt and drought.

The challenges are no less great today. We face hurricanes and megafires and food shortages and more. But we have one powerful advantage as we face our current crisis: the past. Our knowledge of ancient climates has advanced tremendously in the last decade, to the point where we can now reconstruct seasonal weather going back thousands of years and see just how people and nature interacted. The lesson is clear: the societies that survive are those that plan ahead.

Climate Chaos is a book about saving ourselves. Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani show in remarkable detail what it was like to battle our climate over centuries and offer us a path to a safer and healthier future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541750876
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	09/21/2021
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	393,296
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Brian Fagan is one of the world's leading archaeological writers and an internationally recognized authority on world prehistory. He is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of several widely read books on ancient climate change. He has lectured about the subject to audiences large and small throughout the world. His latest book is Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization (Yale University Press, 2018).
 
Nadia Durrani is a Cambridge University-trained archaeologist and writer, with a PhD in Arabian archaeology. She is the editor and founder of Past Worlds magazine, and is co-author, with Brian Fagan, of several books including What we Did in Bed and Bigger Than History.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Authors' Note xix

Chronological Table xxi

Prolegomenon: Before We Begin: Fires, Ice Ages, and More 1

1 A Frozen World (c. 30,000 to c. 15,000 Years Ago) 17

2 After the Ice (Before 15,000 Years Ago to c. 6000 BCE) 35

3 Megadrought (c. 5500 BCE to 651 CE) 53

4 Nile and Indus (3100 to c. 1700 BCE) 69

5 The Fall of Rome (c. 200 BCE to the Eighth Century CE) 89

6 The Maya Transformation (c. 1000 BCE to the Fifteenth Century CE) 109

7 Gods and El Niños (c. 3000 BCE to the Fifteenth Century CE) 127

8 Chaco and Cahokia (c. 800 to 1350 CE) 145

9 The Disappeared Megacity (802 to 1430 CE) 165

10 Africa's Reach (First Century BCE to 1450 CE) 183

11 A Warm Snap (536 to 1216 CE) 199

12 "New Andalusia" and Beyond (1513 CE to Today) 219

13 The Ice Returns (c. 1321 to 1800 CE) 233

14 Monstrous Eruptions (1808 to 1988 CE) 251

15 Back to the Future (Today and Tomorrow) 267

Acknowledgments 287

Notes 289

Index 307

Editorial Reviews

09/20/2021

There’s an incorrect yet widely held assumption “that the human experience with ancient climatic shifts is irrelevant to today’s industrialized world,” according to this impassioned history. Anthropology professor Fagan (Fishing) and archaeologist Durrani (Bigger Than History) look at how previous generations have adapted to climate change, going as far back as before the first millennium CE, when early humans valued cooperation and showed “an intimate knowledge of the changing environment... and a deep respect for the natural world.” Later sections revisit the end of the Roman Empire, when a plague ran rampant, and how, for example, Native Americans in the early 16th century dealt with drought via “mobility and by maintaining kin ties with neighboring communities.” The authors round things out with a handful of “brutally simple” lessons: that humans must better use their skills at planning, cooperation, and reasoning in the face of climate change; that humans have a remarkable ability to predict climate change thanks to science and technology; that a great deal of adaptation must come at the local level; and that connections with family and communities are “a remarkable survival mechanism.” Educational and earnest, Fagan and Durrani’s work offers an original historical perspective. Climate-minded readers will find much to consider. Agent: Susan Rabiner, Rabiner Literary. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors by Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani is a tour de force because of its relevance to deal with global climate change. The authors ask, what can we learn from past successes and failures? The takeaway are six major lessons critical for our survival. Their clearly written and concise book includes [hi]stories beginning 30,000 years ago up through the Anthropocene. Case studies cover the cold (Ice Age) and the hot and dry (ancient Egypt) and hot and humid (the Maya), from nomadic hunters (early Africa and Europe) to empires (Rome), from megadroughts (American Southwest) to monsoons (Angkor)."—Lisa Lucero, professor of anthropology, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

“Climate change is happening right now—but has happened many times before, too. Climate Chaos tells an astonishing story of thousands of years of wildfires, megadroughts, cataclysmic cyclones and floods, decades-long heat waves and sudden regional ice ages. As we respond to contemporary climate change, our great advantage over our ancestors is scientific knowledge. Will we use that knowledge wisely? Climate Chaos shows how.”—Gregg Easterbrook, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and author of The Blue Age

“It is often said that those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. Human-caused climate change constitutes the greatest challenge we have yet faced as a civilization, and we must learn from our past if we are to meet that challenge. I can think of no better source than Climate Chaos by Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani, which explores how our ancestors coped with the challenges of natural climate instability, offering some lessons along the way for how we can avert a climate crisis.”—Michael E. Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University and author of The New Climate War

“Impassioned…educational…Fagan and Durrani’s work offers an original historical perspective.”—Publishers Weekly

“[A] rich survey of the past 30,000 years.”—Nature

“The leading archaeologist writing team of Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani has compiled a fascinating study of human species’ adaptation through cycles of drought and flooding in pre-industrial and post-industrial times.”—New York Journal of Books

From the Publisher

★ 09/01/2021

In this latest book, Fagan and Durrani (who previously collaborated on What We Did in Bed and Bigger Than History) seek to answer one question: why is history relevant to the way societies will handle future climate chaos? The result is a thorough study of human history, as seen entirely through the impact of climate. They survey 30,000 years of global humanity to show how previous societies responded, or didn't, to climate shifts; they also outline lessons for modern societies adapting to future irreversible global warming. They do touch on climate science, but because of the complexity and fast-changing nature of the discipline, they chose instead to focus on archaeology and history, to great effect. Theirs is not a typical work of popular world history; it's fresh and new, and, unlike similar titles, marvelously eschews specificity in favor of generality and universality. The authors create thought-provoking connections and draw striking conclusions that will interest even the most climate-savvy of readers. VERDICT Complete with maps and illustrations, this wide-ranging historical survey is international in scope, while remaining accessible. A title for every reader, no matter their academic background.—Laura Hiatt, Fort Collins, CO

Library Journal

2021-06-29
A long look back at human interactions with changing climate issues in the past.

Archaeologists Fagan and Durrani, the former of whom has written about climate and natural resources in several popular books, survey the “story of how our ancestors adapted to…myriad shifts, large and small,” as portions of the world alternately heated and cooled. One adaptation of long standing is simply to move, as Ancestral Puebloan people did when a centurylong drought settled over what is now the Southwestern U.S. Ecological refugees who are leaving present-day drought-stricken zones in places such as the Sahel are evidence of “the ancient survival strategy of mobility on a truly massive scale.” The massive drought that has settled over the present-day Southwest does not afford the same ability. As exploding population in the region, the authors write, has “placed major stresses on groundwater and other scarce water supplies as global warming intensifies.” Given that mass migration “is no longer a viable option in our time,” it’s up to modern planners to figure out a way to ensure the chances of our survival. While questioning our near-religious faith in the thought that technology can somehow save us, the authors allow that it will help, even as we continue to wreak catastrophic damage. Megadroughts in places such as the Southwest and India are not our only concern; the authors write of climate change–induced flooding and plagues, noting that the difference between present and past is that the natural alterations of old are now human-caused. What we do have going for us, the authors conclude in this accessible survey, is our ability to think problems through. “In planning adaptations to future climate change,” they write, “we need to maximize those enduring qualities that will sustain us as we plan decisive adaptations for the future.” That includes local leadership to address local effects.

Can we survive climate change? This learned book suggests that we can, but it won’t be easy.

Kirkus Reviews

Alex Hyde-White narrates this deep dive into climate history with just the right tone and tempo. His deliberate style allows listeners to take in the nuances of the relationships among major climate upheavals—earthquakes, floods, ice ages, and, of course, warming—to identify how humans have suffered, persevered, and adapted. The authors, both archaeologists, utilize recent revelations in climate science, archaeology, and history to unearth lessons from Rome, the Mayan empire, China, India, and Europe. They chronicle the local and global disasters of the past thirty thousand years. The 1815 Mount Tambora explosion in Indonesia affected the entire planet, including the American economy. Their thesis that the “past holds the keys to the future” is amply documented. The audiobook ends on a cautiously optimistic note. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2022 - AudioFile

Alex Hyde-White narrates this deep dive into climate history with just the right tone and tempo. His deliberate style allows listeners to take in the nuances of the relationships among major climate upheavals—earthquakes, floods, ice ages, and, of course, warming—to identify how humans have suffered, persevered, and adapted. The authors, both archaeologists, utilize recent revelations in climate science, archaeology, and history to unearth lessons from Rome, the Mayan empire, China, India, and Europe. They chronicle the local and global disasters of the past thirty thousand years. The 1815 Mount Tambora explosion in Indonesia affected the entire planet, including the American economy. Their thesis that the “past holds the keys to the future” is amply documented. The audiobook ends on a cautiously optimistic note. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2022 - AudioFile