Benjamin A. Lieberman, Elizabeth Gordon. Climate Change in Human History: Prehistory to the Present. London: Bloomsbury, 2018. 244 pp. $29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4725-9850-9.
Reviewed by Raechel Lutz (The Wardlaw + Hartridge School)
Published on H-Environment (January, 2021)
Commissioned by Daniella McCahey (Texas Tech University)
Climate Change in Human History marries science and history in an attempt to create a narrative of the earth’s changing climate from the earliest stages of human life. Co-authored by Benjamin Lieberman, a historian of modern Europe, and Elizabeth Gordon, a professor of geoscience, the book employs a grand scale that requires readers to think in broad terms about how climate has monolithically influenced and coincided with the development of human civilizations.
In their introductory hook, the authors outline three scenarios in which climate and the course of human civilizations are intertwined. First, favorable climate conditions allow for the development of complex agricultural societies. Second, a sudden, long-term reduction in rainfalls coincides with the migration and dispersal of a different civilization. Third, a more resilient society adapts to changing weather patterns. Such vignettes demonstrate the book’s argument that “climate change and human history have become so closely connected that it is not possible to separate one from the other” (p. 179). Taking the long view from prehistory to the present, they argue, is necessary to uncover this transhistorical phenomenon.
Most of the book is fascinating. I learned a lot, from a description of ancient giant sloths to the history of Africa’s Green Sahara and the role of drought in China’s Tang and Song dynasties. Although the chapters are sometimes massively broad in scope, the sections and paragraphs draw the reader to the moments that most clearly support the book’s argument.
Climate Change in Human History is organized into eight chapters after the introduction. The first six reflect a chronological application of the book’s argument, starting with a global cooling trend approximately fifty million years ago and moving up to the present. The seventh and eighth chapters reflect on contemporary conflicts and controversies as well as the consequences of anthropogenic climate change since the Industrial Revolution. The authors do not directly intervene in the debates about periodization of the Anthropocene, but they do recognize and clearly state that modern climate change is anthropogenic and has consequences already being felt in biomes across the globe (p. 171).
Chapter 1 analyzes the pace of climate changes by focusing on one year within a chronology of tens of thousands in order to demonstrate the connections between changes in climate and where and how human societies developed. Chapter 2 investigates the retreat of the last glaciers and the expansion of agriculture across the globe. Chapter 3 takes us up to around 500 CE, reflecting on the development of ancient civilizations and how regional climate shifts helped some and hurt others. Chapter 4 has the same goal as the previous chapter but covers 500 CE to 1300 CE. In particular, the authors consider the benefits of the Medieval Climate Anomaly to European societies, while droughts and other shifts in climate complicated developments in the Americas and Asia. Chapter 5 takes aim at the Little Ice Age, showing how some societies struggled while others adapted. Chapter 6 brings readers up to the present by addressing humans’ impact on climate change from the Industrial Revolution and the use of fossil fuels. This chapter felt the most rushed, although it aligns with the pacing of the rest of the book. Much of these first six chapters provides a synthesis of lots of scientific and historical research on specific peoples and places. Chapter 7 highlights how recent global warming is being felt across the world, including sea-level rise, ice retreat, and changes in precipitation. Chapter 8 discusses how climate change has become a controversial topic in some polities, reflecting on possible global warming remedies and reasons for climate change obstinance.
Despite the book’s fascinating long view of global history, its references fall far short in terms of relevant historical works, especially in the introduction. Many times while reading, I flipped to the endnotes hoping to see certain citations and did not find them. Though the authors do have scattered references to the climate scholarship of historians Karen O. Kupperman, Sam White, Brian Fagan, and Dagomar Degroot, the book’s notes will leave a historian of the subject wanting. Significantly, Climate Change in Human History almost entirely ignores the field of environmental history. For example, the only citation that appears in the introduction is for Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), which environmental historians have critiqued as too environmentally deterministic, even though his simple answers to complex historical questions have grabbed public attention. Rather than citing Diamond to indicate historians’ suggestion that climate played a role in the fall of the Roman Empire, the authors could have instead referenced Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (2017). Though the world of scholarship is vast, the absence of certain voices is noticeable.
My surprise in the book’s lack of environmental history citations raises a question: is climate history beholden to environmental history’s historiography, or is it a new field entirely? As an environmental historian who sees this specialty field as a “big tent” in which scholars can approach the historical relationship between nature and humanity from many angles, I want to say yes to the former. It seems obvious to include the study of climate within the study of the environment, but this might be too simple. Perhaps it is time for climate history to be its own field. According to the Climate History Network, “Although climate reconstructions have a long history in the natural sciences, climate history is only now entering the mainstream of humanistic disciplines, such as history. It has recently entered into political discussions on climate change that aim at contextualizing present and future warming. In light of these developments within and beyond academia, many climate historians decided that they needed their own organization. This network grew out of those ambitions.”[1] As understanding the climate becomes ever more essential to our contemporary world, perhaps an exclusive field of study is not far behind. If so, Climate Change in Human History is a solid contribution.
Readers interested in the very long history of climate on earth will enjoy the book’s synthesis of scientific studies of geological and global history. Both authors deserve praise for tackling such a wide swath of scholarship and for the book’s impressive scope. Its short length and table of contents for each chapter also make it an approachable read. Climate Change in Human History is ideal for multidisciplinary college courses that draw students from both the sciences and history, but all types of readers will undoubtedly learn something new.
Note
[1]. “Why Do We Need a Climate History Network?” Climate History Network, accessed November 22, 2020, http://www.climatehistory.net/about.
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-environment.
Citation:
Raechel Lutz. Review of Lieberman, Benjamin A.; Gordon, Elizabeth, Climate Change in Human History: Prehistory to the Present.
H-Environment, H-Net Reviews.
January, 2021.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55362
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. |