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The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History
Like Winchester's Krakatoa, The Year Without Summer reveals a year of dramatic global change long forgotten by history
In the tradition of Krakatoa, The World Without Us, and Guns, Germs and Steel comes a sweeping history of the year that became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. 1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1816.
In the U.S., the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer led to famine, food riots, the transformation of stable communities into wandering beggars, and one of the worst typhus epidemics in history. 1816 was the year Frankenstein was written. It was also the year Turner painted his fiery sunsets. All of these things are linked to global climate change—something we are quite aware of now, but that was utterly mysterious to people in the nineteenth century, who concocted all sorts of reasons for such an ungenial season.
Making use of a wealth of source material and employing a compelling narrative approach featuring peasants and royalty, politicians, writers, and scientists, The Year Without Summer by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman examines not only the climate change engendered by this event, but also its effects on politics, the economy, the arts, and social structures.
In the tradition of Krakatoa, The World Without Us, and Guns, Germs and Steel comes a sweeping history of the year that became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. 1816 was a remarkable year—mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1816.
In the U.S., the extraordinary weather produced food shortages, religious revivals, and extensive migration from New England to the Midwest. In Europe, the cold and wet summer led to famine, food riots, the transformation of stable communities into wandering beggars, and one of the worst typhus epidemics in history. 1816 was the year Frankenstein was written. It was also the year Turner painted his fiery sunsets. All of these things are linked to global climate change—something we are quite aware of now, but that was utterly mysterious to people in the nineteenth century, who concocted all sorts of reasons for such an ungenial season.
Making use of a wealth of source material and employing a compelling narrative approach featuring peasants and royalty, politicians, writers, and scientists, The Year Without Summer by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman examines not only the climate change engendered by this event, but also its effects on politics, the economy, the arts, and social structures.
338 pages, Hardcover
First published February 26, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 255 reviews
May 17, 2014
Imagine hearing this quote from the book description in the booming voice of the movie trailer guy, “In the tradition of Krakatoa, The World Without Us, and Guns, Germs and Steel comes a sweeping history of the year that became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death.“ Compelling, right? That’s what I thought.
I knew of this 1816 event and wanted to learn more and eagerly sought out this book which is well researched but contains too much repetitive detail.
One of the authors has a Ph.D. in meteorology and the science in the beginning of the book is what I was looking for. After that, the book fell apart with repetition of descriptions of weather from Europe and the US. To be honest, I don’t know what I expected the book to contain so maybe the disappointment is on me as much as the authors.
Among the books I’ve read to date, I find on average, there is 1 book that I am unable to finish for every 70 books I read. I think this is a great indication that I am willing to give a book every benefit of doubt and will likely trudge through no matter what. Obviously, there are the exceptions. This, unfortunately, is one of them.
I knew of this 1816 event and wanted to learn more and eagerly sought out this book which is well researched but contains too much repetitive detail.
One of the authors has a Ph.D. in meteorology and the science in the beginning of the book is what I was looking for. After that, the book fell apart with repetition of descriptions of weather from Europe and the US. To be honest, I don’t know what I expected the book to contain so maybe the disappointment is on me as much as the authors.
Among the books I’ve read to date, I find on average, there is 1 book that I am unable to finish for every 70 books I read. I think this is a great indication that I am willing to give a book every benefit of doubt and will likely trudge through no matter what. Obviously, there are the exceptions. This, unfortunately, is one of them.
May 22, 2014
It's a shame that this work turned out to be such a bore. The topic, the long-term climatological and sociological effects of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, is such a good one, not only for historical analysis but for learning how humans cope with sudden climate change. But the book itself gets bogged down in extraneous detail removed from the central narrative. A concise sentence never is used when several pages can substitute for topics as remote as the life and loves of Percy Byshee Shelley or the lack of representation in Parliament for the Irish people. The work was co-authored by an history professor and his meteorologist son, each vying for the honor of most profligate contributor. Not recommended.
March 2, 2019
This had so much potential to be a fascinating look at a time of upheaval in world history due to a single terrible event - the eruption of Mt Tambora in Indonesia. I was unaware of the magnitude of this eruption - I had heard of it, but was more aware of the more famous volcano that basically leveled Krakatoa in the late 1800s. In fact, the authors mention in the afterword the Krakatoa eruption and while it was devastating (the eruption was heard over 2200 miles away in Australia), it was less far ranging in its effects due to less ash and sulfur dioxide released. How bad was Tambora? On the index for volcano explosivity - a geometric scale - Mt St Helens rated a 5 and Krakatoa was 10 times stronger at a 6. Tambora was 10 times more powerful than Krakotoa and rated a 7. Only four other volcanoes in the last hundred CENTURIES have reached a 7. The effects were dramatic. For years, there were iceberg-sized pumice fields floating in the ocean and impacting navigation. Ash was also epic. In 24 hours, the ash cloud covered an area the size of Australia, and when the cloud departed, it had deposited 40 inches of ash over everything. The volcano released enough rock in the form of ash & pumice to cover 100 square miles to a depth of 12 feet. The human toll was tragic as well - 90,000 died in Indonesia alone. But it was the after-effects of the eruption, as the climate was disrupted worldwide, that would continue to have tragic consequences.
So with this kind of material to work with, it seems that the authors squandered their opportunity to make this a compelling book. Instead they spent too much time on the side stories and the side stories were simply boring and mostly unrelated to the theme.
> Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley - we are treated to unending travelogues (and yes, weather reports) of their travel through Switzerland. The origin of Frankenstein is touched upon, as is some of the other writing that this group did (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - various poems by Shelley), but that does not seem to belong in a book about a volcano and its effects.
> Discussions of the political climate in Britain and Ireland. This at least seemed to have a little relationship to the after-effects of the eruption. There are huge effects on farming and crop failures are rampant. In this setting, it is difficult to conceive of the excesses that the monarchy (in both France & England) were so cavalier about. There was mention of a dinner party where the Prince Regent served 36(!!!) entrees. So much of this was dull, dull, dull.
> Endless discussions about the then-current theories for the terrible weather. Of course, it was only in recent history that the climate change wreaked by the volcano was figured out. But there was an inordinate amount of time spent on theories, from the possible (loss of forested areas) to the religious (God's wrath) to the improbable (sunspot activity).
There are too many side trips and they are too disjointed. Much of it could have been interesting if it had been handled better. It was extremely repetitious - how many times / ways can it be said that the weather was unusually wet / cold / miserable. There was quote after quote - from area after area - and person after person ... until either you are skipping to the next paragraph or snoozing. This was a cataclysmic event - 1816 was the 2nd coldest year in the Northern Hemisphere since 1400 - and this had far-reaching effects. It drove people off farms and into cities. In America, it was part of the impetus for emigration into Ohio and Indiana and other points on the frontier. While Jefferson encouraged the establishment of a national meteorological observation system to track data, the best that was accomplished was a network of amateur observers.
If you are interested in this topic, I would skip through the boring parts - they add nothing to the overall story.
So with this kind of material to work with, it seems that the authors squandered their opportunity to make this a compelling book. Instead they spent too much time on the side stories and the side stories were simply boring and mostly unrelated to the theme.
> Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley - we are treated to unending travelogues (and yes, weather reports) of their travel through Switzerland. The origin of Frankenstein is touched upon, as is some of the other writing that this group did (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - various poems by Shelley), but that does not seem to belong in a book about a volcano and its effects.
> Discussions of the political climate in Britain and Ireland. This at least seemed to have a little relationship to the after-effects of the eruption. There are huge effects on farming and crop failures are rampant. In this setting, it is difficult to conceive of the excesses that the monarchy (in both France & England) were so cavalier about. There was mention of a dinner party where the Prince Regent served 36(!!!) entrees. So much of this was dull, dull, dull.
> Endless discussions about the then-current theories for the terrible weather. Of course, it was only in recent history that the climate change wreaked by the volcano was figured out. But there was an inordinate amount of time spent on theories, from the possible (loss of forested areas) to the religious (God's wrath) to the improbable (sunspot activity).
There are too many side trips and they are too disjointed. Much of it could have been interesting if it had been handled better. It was extremely repetitious - how many times / ways can it be said that the weather was unusually wet / cold / miserable. There was quote after quote - from area after area - and person after person ... until either you are skipping to the next paragraph or snoozing. This was a cataclysmic event - 1816 was the 2nd coldest year in the Northern Hemisphere since 1400 - and this had far-reaching effects. It drove people off farms and into cities. In America, it was part of the impetus for emigration into Ohio and Indiana and other points on the frontier. While Jefferson encouraged the establishment of a national meteorological observation system to track data, the best that was accomplished was a network of amateur observers.
If you are interested in this topic, I would skip through the boring parts - they add nothing to the overall story.
May 11, 2024
I would probably give this book 2.5 stars truthfully since the authors did a great deal of research, but I was disappointed that there was so little on Tambora and the eruption itself. The authors jump around from England to Switzerland to the U.S. to France to Germany and back again. Basically, it was about rain and more rain, and then snow and cold which destroyed crops. Shelley and Lord Byron are mentioned a lot although maybe they just wanted to show how the weather affected famous people.
The eruption in April of 1815 had a profound effect on a Europe devastated by war. After June of that year, there should have been some respite only to have 1816 turn into such tragedy on a worldwide basis.
The eruption in April of 1815 had a profound effect on a Europe devastated by war. After June of that year, there should have been some respite only to have 1816 turn into such tragedy on a worldwide basis.
October 26, 2018
A volcano explodes and changes the climate for two years; starvation and unrest cover the Western world.
Warning: This book zooms in on the micro level. You're getting climate, weather, crop records, personal letters, everything that is, in fact, the opposite of "big picture" stuff. If you're looking for a "big picture" book, read Guns, Germs, and Steel.
I thought the detail was fascinating. I wanted more information from December 2016 and onward, to show more of that winter and how people coped (or didn't). How many people died? A question that was never really addressed. So I can't give it five stars, but it was still fascinating.
Warning: This book zooms in on the micro level. You're getting climate, weather, crop records, personal letters, everything that is, in fact, the opposite of "big picture" stuff. If you're looking for a "big picture" book, read Guns, Germs, and Steel.
I thought the detail was fascinating. I wanted more information from December 2016 and onward, to show more of that winter and how people coped (or didn't). How many people died? A question that was never really addressed. So I can't give it five stars, but it was still fascinating.
April 20, 2014
What do Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, James Madison, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis XVIII, George III, Sir Robert Peel, and Joseph Smith of Mormon fame all have in common? They were all indirectly affected by Javanese volcanic activity by being alive in 1816, that's what!
Oh my... such a reach. I was disappointed - I had hoped for more.
Oh my... such a reach. I was disappointed - I had hoped for more.
April 1, 2013
A fascinating study of the links between meteorology and volcanism. In 1815 Mt. Tambora in Indonesia exploded, sending a massive ash cloud into the stratosphere. By 1816 the cloud had reached the northern hemisphere, dropping temperatures by several degrees. For people in that year it was a time of lingering winter, soggy summers, with crop failures and mass migrations resulting from starvation for many. The authors explore how the cooling weather not just affected food, but also politics, religion and literature. Well written and clear enough for the non-scientific reader. Four stars overall and recommended.
For the longer review, please go here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Willia...
For the longer review, please go here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Willia...
May 10, 2025
This was interesting. I have heard tell of many of the historic volcanic eruptions that have affected the world over time. Somehow, I didn't know about this one, and it was one of the biggest recorded. I do wonder if I knew about it at some point and just forgot, or if it never made its way into my awareness.
Either way, this eruption affected so many things in so many countries. The climate changed in a way that crops were devastated, winters extended, droughts exaggerated, etc etc.
This book covers all of that and more. It goes into the history of many countries or regions or towns that were impacted by this. Some of the stories were compelling, some were a bit dull, but overall this seemed to be a pretty comprehensive account of how one event can impact the world.
There were many side stories that either could have been fleshed out into their own book, or ignored completely. Sometimes the author jumped from one story to another so randomly that it felt like there were too many thoughts going on in his head, and he really needed to get them all down on paper.
But, other than that, it is an interesting study in the scientific method of the time, and the political and personal consequences of a world changing event.
For history buffs, it might be a worthwhile read. For someone wanting a cohesive and compelling story, maybe not.
Either way, this eruption affected so many things in so many countries. The climate changed in a way that crops were devastated, winters extended, droughts exaggerated, etc etc.
This book covers all of that and more. It goes into the history of many countries or regions or towns that were impacted by this. Some of the stories were compelling, some were a bit dull, but overall this seemed to be a pretty comprehensive account of how one event can impact the world.
There were many side stories that either could have been fleshed out into their own book, or ignored completely. Sometimes the author jumped from one story to another so randomly that it felt like there were too many thoughts going on in his head, and he really needed to get them all down on paper.
But, other than that, it is an interesting study in the scientific method of the time, and the political and personal consequences of a world changing event.
For history buffs, it might be a worthwhile read. For someone wanting a cohesive and compelling story, maybe not.
April 21, 2020
I snagged this book of my to-read shelf, likely out of some subconscious foreboding sense of what lies ahead (or doesn't, as the case may be) as we enter what is likely to be a weird and subdued summer season in the midst of a pandemic. It's an interesting read, but unfortunately fails to live up to its subtitle.
'The Year Without Summer' is an account of the summer of 1816, which occurred after the April 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia. The volcanic eruption, we learn in the first few pages, resulted in a significant amount of particulate matter being released into the stratosphere. Too high to be cleaned out by rain, too small to fall out quickly, but large enough to reflect sunlight and heat, these particles led to a devastating period of cool temperatures around the world.
There are two primary challenges with this book. The first one is that it could, frankly, be summarized down into one line: "1816 - it was cold and wet." While the authors (Klingaman and Klingaman) have done a good job of weaving together many different historical records of this wetness and coolness from diaries, newspapers, political addresses, and the like, it really does boil down to that. As a result, crops and farmers suffered, which led to the predictable hardships for the public.
The challenge with this is that we never really take that analysis further. Half the subtitle of the book, "the volcano... that changed history," is left dangling as we never really probe /what/ these changes were (other than crummy crops and lots of hunger) or /how/ they happened. We get frequent references to different political figures, but little in the way of synthesis about how this systematically changed institutions, laws, or politics. We get periodic discussion of science, namely in how people misinterpreted the causes of the cooling (sunspots? divine intervention?), but never any account that brings together how the practice of agriculture or science changed as a result. We get periodic anecdotes about Jane Austen and Mary Shelley, but never much analysis of its influence on literature more broadly (other than 'Frankenstein was written during this dark time, while Mary was having a kind of disappointing set of travels in unexpectedly rainy places').
The other shortcoming of the book is in the other half of the subtitle: 'the volcano that darkened the world.' Except, well, the book only really considers the world to be colonial America, England, and a couple of central European countries. In the epilogue, we're hit with a passing reference to the death of ten thousand in India from a disease that emerged as a result of the cool, wet conditions - yet this is brushed off as largely uninteresting given the lack of historical evidence. Frankly, little of the world outside of the colonies, England, and Switzerland/Italy factor into the book, leading to a terribly lopsided account of what was initially presented as a global phenomenon.
As such, I'm left torn here. It's an engaging, interesting book, if you're into historical writing about the 1800s. But, it never really lands any analysis about why things got bad or how they changed as a result, which is exactly what historical inquiry is so well positioned to help us understand. And, it cedes far too much ground in never even attempting a global study of the volcano's impacts, instead treating America and small portions of Europe as the only locales worth studying. As such, while it's certainly a valuable contribution to the oeuvre of writing about the cold of 1816, it only offers a tiny lens into really understanding what happened that year.
'The Year Without Summer' is an account of the summer of 1816, which occurred after the April 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia. The volcanic eruption, we learn in the first few pages, resulted in a significant amount of particulate matter being released into the stratosphere. Too high to be cleaned out by rain, too small to fall out quickly, but large enough to reflect sunlight and heat, these particles led to a devastating period of cool temperatures around the world.
There are two primary challenges with this book. The first one is that it could, frankly, be summarized down into one line: "1816 - it was cold and wet." While the authors (Klingaman and Klingaman) have done a good job of weaving together many different historical records of this wetness and coolness from diaries, newspapers, political addresses, and the like, it really does boil down to that. As a result, crops and farmers suffered, which led to the predictable hardships for the public.
The challenge with this is that we never really take that analysis further. Half the subtitle of the book, "the volcano... that changed history," is left dangling as we never really probe /what/ these changes were (other than crummy crops and lots of hunger) or /how/ they happened. We get frequent references to different political figures, but little in the way of synthesis about how this systematically changed institutions, laws, or politics. We get periodic discussion of science, namely in how people misinterpreted the causes of the cooling (sunspots? divine intervention?), but never any account that brings together how the practice of agriculture or science changed as a result. We get periodic anecdotes about Jane Austen and Mary Shelley, but never much analysis of its influence on literature more broadly (other than 'Frankenstein was written during this dark time, while Mary was having a kind of disappointing set of travels in unexpectedly rainy places').
The other shortcoming of the book is in the other half of the subtitle: 'the volcano that darkened the world.' Except, well, the book only really considers the world to be colonial America, England, and a couple of central European countries. In the epilogue, we're hit with a passing reference to the death of ten thousand in India from a disease that emerged as a result of the cool, wet conditions - yet this is brushed off as largely uninteresting given the lack of historical evidence. Frankly, little of the world outside of the colonies, England, and Switzerland/Italy factor into the book, leading to a terribly lopsided account of what was initially presented as a global phenomenon.
As such, I'm left torn here. It's an engaging, interesting book, if you're into historical writing about the 1800s. But, it never really lands any analysis about why things got bad or how they changed as a result, which is exactly what historical inquiry is so well positioned to help us understand. And, it cedes far too much ground in never even attempting a global study of the volcano's impacts, instead treating America and small portions of Europe as the only locales worth studying. As such, while it's certainly a valuable contribution to the oeuvre of writing about the cold of 1816, it only offers a tiny lens into really understanding what happened that year.
January 14, 2015
I actually couldn't finish this book, though I'm very interested in the year. I got through about a hundred pages, then finally stopped. The whole thing (at least as far as I got) reads like a long list of facts, many of which are almost exactly the same--endlessly repetitive. So many (only marginally different) anecdotes about the weather.
At least to the point that I got, the book seems to be focused more on science, chiefly the weather caused by the eruption, whereas I'm more interested in the social/historical aspects. For example--I get that it snowed a bunch and the ground froze and there were no crops. I don't need to be told this for a hundred pages. Far more interesting to me is how people--and societies, rather than individuals--responded to having no crops. I'd have liked to have seen more of the indirect effects of the volcano, rather than just the direct ones like weather changes. Unfortunately, there's very little of the former and too much of the latter.
And as far as readability goes, it seems kind of like the authors did all the research and then decided to just publish their notes rather than combining them into something that flowed well, with good structure. There is a lot of information, but it's very dull. I know this is non-fiction, so I don't expect it to be a super-engaging story or anything, but there's no narrative at all here.
Maybe it gets better further in; the reason I kept reading as long as I did is because I thought it must. However, after 100+ pages, it hadn't, and ultimately, life's too short to waste this much time reading lists.
At least to the point that I got, the book seems to be focused more on science, chiefly the weather caused by the eruption, whereas I'm more interested in the social/historical aspects. For example--I get that it snowed a bunch and the ground froze and there were no crops. I don't need to be told this for a hundred pages. Far more interesting to me is how people--and societies, rather than individuals--responded to having no crops. I'd have liked to have seen more of the indirect effects of the volcano, rather than just the direct ones like weather changes. Unfortunately, there's very little of the former and too much of the latter.
And as far as readability goes, it seems kind of like the authors did all the research and then decided to just publish their notes rather than combining them into something that flowed well, with good structure. There is a lot of information, but it's very dull. I know this is non-fiction, so I don't expect it to be a super-engaging story or anything, but there's no narrative at all here.
Maybe it gets better further in; the reason I kept reading as long as I did is because I thought it must. However, after 100+ pages, it hadn't, and ultimately, life's too short to waste this much time reading lists.
February 14, 2024
Exploration of the physical, political, and artistic effects of the Tambora volcanic eruption of 1815, which cooled the entire world for over a year, ruining crops and leading to famines, pandemics, and political unrest. I was primarily interested in its relevance to the writing of Frankenstein. Although the authors follow Mary Shelly throughout the familiar story of the novel's origin, the weather had, as far as I could tell, little impact on the novel. That thread was just filler and better told elsewhere.
Other narrative threads follow the various government responses to crop failures in various parts of the world. Once again the British government comes off looking very bad. Lots and lots of meteorological reporting is exactly as boring as the evening weather report on the news. It was repetitive; I ended up skimming a lot of it. Yet another repetitive element was the reporting of bogus pseudo-scientific explanations that were current at the time. Since most of us are already familiar with the notions of nuclear winter and with the global weather effects of the Chicxulub meteor that killed off the dinosaurs, the genuine science didn't deliver much that was new. If you are interested in the effects of sulfur on global warming/cooling, I suggest Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock instead.
This is a quick read, and there are some interesting details buried in the filler, but I can't recommend it.
Other narrative threads follow the various government responses to crop failures in various parts of the world. Once again the British government comes off looking very bad. Lots and lots of meteorological reporting is exactly as boring as the evening weather report on the news. It was repetitive; I ended up skimming a lot of it. Yet another repetitive element was the reporting of bogus pseudo-scientific explanations that were current at the time. Since most of us are already familiar with the notions of nuclear winter and with the global weather effects of the Chicxulub meteor that killed off the dinosaurs, the genuine science didn't deliver much that was new. If you are interested in the effects of sulfur on global warming/cooling, I suggest Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock instead.
This is a quick read, and there are some interesting details buried in the filler, but I can't recommend it.
December 7, 2025
Good lord this was the worst reading experience I’ve had in a while. The subject matter seemed so interesting, and was, until suddenly 90% of the book is discussing politics that mostly have nothing to do with the weather that prevented summer in 1816. This book could have been a fascinating 150 page read, but no. They spent 50% repeating that “the harvest was bad.” Yes okay AND THEN WHAT?? Like my god. We get it. The book just wasn’t focused on a main point and it made it an utter slog. Sad I wasted the time on it tbh
November 27, 2022
Grab a cup of your preferred hot beverage, snag a blanket and curl up because this one is going to be a doozy.
Thanks to this book I have formulated a completely unscientifically based theory about the categories of books that end up in the little free libraries scattered all over the United States. The first category is the loved books, the books that have been read to within an inch of their life. They are battered, covered in highlights and notes, a large proportion of the pages are dogeared, and the binding is questionable at best. These books have been read, and read again by someone who loved them and now, because of a move, or a need to downsize, or some such life event has decided to gift them to the greater community in the hopes that someone will love them as much as they did. The second category is the meh books. These are the books that have been read once, but didn't really move the heart, mind, or soul of the reader and are immediately consigned to the thrift store or the free little library. These are usually in good condition, one or two minor stains, a bit of wear on the covers. They in turn are read, and then returned to be passed on to another. Eventually they find their perfect match and stick with them to be read over and over again and eventually move to the first category. Then there is the third category, the category I like to call coffee table books. These are the books that people buy to display on their coffee tables or book shelves. The books that signal something socially positive to visitors and so they are left artistically in highly visible places and serve as conversation pieces where a bunch of people pretend to know more than they do about topics like climate change, micro-economics, and whatever buzzword is popular that year. These books are pristine, because they were never even cracked open. Or if they were, the owner read the first chapter, grew bored with it, and just left the bookmark there to demonstrate their own virtue. These books live on the coffee table, accumulating dust on their exterior, until the buzzword changes, and then they find their way to the thrift store or the free little library, their owners breathing a little sigh of relief that they no longer have that passe nod to last year's buzzword. There they stay. Someone picks them up, flips through them, realizes they are empty and puts them back until eventually they end up in a landfill.
This book is of the third category. The category of book that sits on a bookshelf in your local library and is never checked out for the tenure of its life there, because people have more valuable things to spend their time on.
This is a coffee table book. It's a book that people buy to impress each other. It's not a book that people buy to read. I don't blame them. It was a terrible experience to read it.
I am not a climatologist, nor a historian, nor a statistician, nor even an author, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. On the other hand, I do not underestimate the intelligence of your average consumer of the written word. Us insatiably curious consumers of the written word have a great deal of common sense and we can spot ridiculously unsubstantiated claims just fine. We can also tell when authors are demeaning or despising us. And that is exactly what the authors of this book are doing. In fact, they are not just demeaning their audience, they are demeaning their subjects!
When I do decide to write something, such as overly long reviews of terrible books, I do not demean or despise my audience. I assume that they are intelligent, erudite people. Why else would they be reading a review on a book of climatological history? But you see, the writers of this book do not make that assumption. Instead they assume that their readers are idiots and need to be pandered to. It seems as though they have no idea who their readership will be, or that they are pandering to two distinct groups of readers that are fairly mutually exclusive. The first group is that of meteorologists and climatologists. There is jargon thrown around without ever being defined, because why would it need to be? Afterall, meteorologists already know it. Sniff. Yes, but are meteorologists actually going to read this book? I don't think so. Why would they? They are usually more interested in their own niche research, at least they are so if they are like every other research driven community. Grants follow 'new' and 'cutting edge' research instead of paying people to verify the work that others have done.
So, if this book is written for meteorologists it fails, while there is jargon everywhere, there are also claims that are so broad that such scientists would probably roll their eyes and roll up their sleeves and immediately embark on a barbed diatribe about generalizations, correlation not being causation, lack of evidence, and all of those lovely things. But even the second group of readers, the average readers, can recognize the idiocy of some of the claims. I mean the guy makes the claim that tree rings showed evidence of a three degree change in weather. Seriously? I don't know anything about weather, and I can spot that as bogus. Tree ring reading is by no means so exact. Thermometers haven't been that exact until recently! I remember using mercury thermometers and those things varied by 5 degrees within the course of a day. Tree rings?!?!?
That's probably the most irritating aspect of this book, the authors are constantly demeaning people of the past for their 'ridiculous quasi-scientific claims', I mean, who could think that sunspots, the marching of troops, or the conniving of Satan could cause cooling? Okay, yeah, those theories seem pretty outlandish, considering what we know today, but they didn't know what we know today, and it's because of the work that those people did in the past that we have progressed to where we are today. And, furthermore, good sir, did you ever stop to consider that in two hundred years your theory about tree rings indicating temperature to within 3 degrees is going to be laughed off by the meteorologists of the 2400s? Because it probably will be. Now that we've been keeping fairly good temperature logs for the past 100 years, we can start to compare them with tree ring data and see if there is any correlation between them, we can finally test the tree ring theory! It may be accurate, but it may not be. Regardless, I'm hard pressed to think of a scientific theory from two hundred years ago that isn't laughed off now...except for geometry and Newtonian physics...oh wait, we've even edited those!
That's the nature of science. It's growing, it's changing, it's expanding. We realize what we have done wrong, and we make a new theory to account for the new information we have, then in a couple of years, decades, or centuries, we revamp it again. If you know that, it would behoove you to have a little bit of humility and not treat those on whose shoulders you stand as a bunch of idiots.
Especially when you are making some of the same mistakes that they made. As you make exquisitely sure to say that correlation is not causation, you are making the claim that because of the weather caused by a volcanic explosion, Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein? How do you know? It's an unfalsifiable claim! An interesting theory to be sure, but hardly gospel! How do you know that Mary Shelley wouldn't have been inspired by a perfectly normal lightning storm? Why did it have to be a lightning storm caused by the explosion of a particular volcano? And for all the title saying that the volcano changed history, it didn't really defend that position, it just accepted it a priori and went with it. I understand why they did that. History is not science. There is no way to check to see if things would have gone down the way they did if one event were to be changed. There are no historical experiments, so maybe it did change the world. But I still think that the only intellectually honest approach to make to it is the approach that literary critics take. This is what was happening at the time of the writing and perhaps it had an effect on the writing. Then people can nod their heads and be like, huh, now I understand that piece of writing better.
I just felt that everything was too cut and dried in this book. Maybe I'm too judgmental.
I suppose the one takeaway that I got from this book is that people are going to panic. People have always panicked, and people will always panic. People saw sunspots and the world was coming to an end. People saw acid rain and the world was coming to an end. People see changing weather patterns and the world is coming to an end. Maybe your individual world is ending. Maybe you will be one of the people who loses their lives, like the hundreds of thousands of people mentioned in this book who lost their lives to weather, famine, and plagues, but the rest of the world keeps on going.
I don't think that's such a bad thing.
Thanks to this book I have formulated a completely unscientifically based theory about the categories of books that end up in the little free libraries scattered all over the United States. The first category is the loved books, the books that have been read to within an inch of their life. They are battered, covered in highlights and notes, a large proportion of the pages are dogeared, and the binding is questionable at best. These books have been read, and read again by someone who loved them and now, because of a move, or a need to downsize, or some such life event has decided to gift them to the greater community in the hopes that someone will love them as much as they did. The second category is the meh books. These are the books that have been read once, but didn't really move the heart, mind, or soul of the reader and are immediately consigned to the thrift store or the free little library. These are usually in good condition, one or two minor stains, a bit of wear on the covers. They in turn are read, and then returned to be passed on to another. Eventually they find their perfect match and stick with them to be read over and over again and eventually move to the first category. Then there is the third category, the category I like to call coffee table books. These are the books that people buy to display on their coffee tables or book shelves. The books that signal something socially positive to visitors and so they are left artistically in highly visible places and serve as conversation pieces where a bunch of people pretend to know more than they do about topics like climate change, micro-economics, and whatever buzzword is popular that year. These books are pristine, because they were never even cracked open. Or if they were, the owner read the first chapter, grew bored with it, and just left the bookmark there to demonstrate their own virtue. These books live on the coffee table, accumulating dust on their exterior, until the buzzword changes, and then they find their way to the thrift store or the free little library, their owners breathing a little sigh of relief that they no longer have that passe nod to last year's buzzword. There they stay. Someone picks them up, flips through them, realizes they are empty and puts them back until eventually they end up in a landfill.
This book is of the third category. The category of book that sits on a bookshelf in your local library and is never checked out for the tenure of its life there, because people have more valuable things to spend their time on.
This is a coffee table book. It's a book that people buy to impress each other. It's not a book that people buy to read. I don't blame them. It was a terrible experience to read it.
I am not a climatologist, nor a historian, nor a statistician, nor even an author, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. On the other hand, I do not underestimate the intelligence of your average consumer of the written word. Us insatiably curious consumers of the written word have a great deal of common sense and we can spot ridiculously unsubstantiated claims just fine. We can also tell when authors are demeaning or despising us. And that is exactly what the authors of this book are doing. In fact, they are not just demeaning their audience, they are demeaning their subjects!
When I do decide to write something, such as overly long reviews of terrible books, I do not demean or despise my audience. I assume that they are intelligent, erudite people. Why else would they be reading a review on a book of climatological history? But you see, the writers of this book do not make that assumption. Instead they assume that their readers are idiots and need to be pandered to. It seems as though they have no idea who their readership will be, or that they are pandering to two distinct groups of readers that are fairly mutually exclusive. The first group is that of meteorologists and climatologists. There is jargon thrown around without ever being defined, because why would it need to be? Afterall, meteorologists already know it. Sniff. Yes, but are meteorologists actually going to read this book? I don't think so. Why would they? They are usually more interested in their own niche research, at least they are so if they are like every other research driven community. Grants follow 'new' and 'cutting edge' research instead of paying people to verify the work that others have done.
So, if this book is written for meteorologists it fails, while there is jargon everywhere, there are also claims that are so broad that such scientists would probably roll their eyes and roll up their sleeves and immediately embark on a barbed diatribe about generalizations, correlation not being causation, lack of evidence, and all of those lovely things. But even the second group of readers, the average readers, can recognize the idiocy of some of the claims. I mean the guy makes the claim that tree rings showed evidence of a three degree change in weather. Seriously? I don't know anything about weather, and I can spot that as bogus. Tree ring reading is by no means so exact. Thermometers haven't been that exact until recently! I remember using mercury thermometers and those things varied by 5 degrees within the course of a day. Tree rings?!?!?
That's probably the most irritating aspect of this book, the authors are constantly demeaning people of the past for their 'ridiculous quasi-scientific claims', I mean, who could think that sunspots, the marching of troops, or the conniving of Satan could cause cooling? Okay, yeah, those theories seem pretty outlandish, considering what we know today, but they didn't know what we know today, and it's because of the work that those people did in the past that we have progressed to where we are today. And, furthermore, good sir, did you ever stop to consider that in two hundred years your theory about tree rings indicating temperature to within 3 degrees is going to be laughed off by the meteorologists of the 2400s? Because it probably will be. Now that we've been keeping fairly good temperature logs for the past 100 years, we can start to compare them with tree ring data and see if there is any correlation between them, we can finally test the tree ring theory! It may be accurate, but it may not be. Regardless, I'm hard pressed to think of a scientific theory from two hundred years ago that isn't laughed off now...except for geometry and Newtonian physics...oh wait, we've even edited those!
That's the nature of science. It's growing, it's changing, it's expanding. We realize what we have done wrong, and we make a new theory to account for the new information we have, then in a couple of years, decades, or centuries, we revamp it again. If you know that, it would behoove you to have a little bit of humility and not treat those on whose shoulders you stand as a bunch of idiots.
Especially when you are making some of the same mistakes that they made. As you make exquisitely sure to say that correlation is not causation, you are making the claim that because of the weather caused by a volcanic explosion, Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein? How do you know? It's an unfalsifiable claim! An interesting theory to be sure, but hardly gospel! How do you know that Mary Shelley wouldn't have been inspired by a perfectly normal lightning storm? Why did it have to be a lightning storm caused by the explosion of a particular volcano? And for all the title saying that the volcano changed history, it didn't really defend that position, it just accepted it a priori and went with it. I understand why they did that. History is not science. There is no way to check to see if things would have gone down the way they did if one event were to be changed. There are no historical experiments, so maybe it did change the world. But I still think that the only intellectually honest approach to make to it is the approach that literary critics take. This is what was happening at the time of the writing and perhaps it had an effect on the writing. Then people can nod their heads and be like, huh, now I understand that piece of writing better.
I just felt that everything was too cut and dried in this book. Maybe I'm too judgmental.
I suppose the one takeaway that I got from this book is that people are going to panic. People have always panicked, and people will always panic. People saw sunspots and the world was coming to an end. People saw acid rain and the world was coming to an end. People see changing weather patterns and the world is coming to an end. Maybe your individual world is ending. Maybe you will be one of the people who loses their lives, like the hundreds of thousands of people mentioned in this book who lost their lives to weather, famine, and plagues, but the rest of the world keeps on going.
I don't think that's such a bad thing.
February 28, 2017
1816 The Year Without a Summer” describes the chaos and misery caused by the Volcanic Eruption of the volcano Krakatoa. Krakatoa is an island located in Indonesia between the other islands of Java and Sumatra.
In 1816 Krakatoa erupted with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6 which is equivalent to 200 tons of TNT. It is the largest known eruption in history. It had emitted halogens fluorine, chlorine and bromine in the form of hydrogen halides into the atmosphere which collected in the stratosphere providing a blanket of gasses that had blocked out the sun. This eruption caused over 35,000 deaths.
The book describes reports of devastation caused by cold temperatures which had been brought to the world. Farmers could not grow grain because of the cold. Reports of snow in July existed in New England.
After an endless amount if newspaper reports of the cold the author also follows the life of some notable people during the time. Sir Robert Peele, Percy and Mary Shelley, James Monroe, King Louis VIII of France and Madame de Stael are followed briefly throughout the book and in his Epilogue the author tells us what ended up happened to them.
I found the book boring however. Too much of the story was the same story but in a different circumstance.
In 1816 Krakatoa erupted with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6 which is equivalent to 200 tons of TNT. It is the largest known eruption in history. It had emitted halogens fluorine, chlorine and bromine in the form of hydrogen halides into the atmosphere which collected in the stratosphere providing a blanket of gasses that had blocked out the sun. This eruption caused over 35,000 deaths.
The book describes reports of devastation caused by cold temperatures which had been brought to the world. Farmers could not grow grain because of the cold. Reports of snow in July existed in New England.
After an endless amount if newspaper reports of the cold the author also follows the life of some notable people during the time. Sir Robert Peele, Percy and Mary Shelley, James Monroe, King Louis VIII of France and Madame de Stael are followed briefly throughout the book and in his Epilogue the author tells us what ended up happened to them.
I found the book boring however. Too much of the story was the same story but in a different circumstance.
October 18, 2013
I am a big fan of history, and enjoy reading the genre. As a child, my family had vacationed near Mt. St. Helens in an area obliterated a month later when the mountain exploded. This sparked a life-long interest in reading about geology and volcanic activity. Having read about Pompeii, Krakatoa, the Hawaii Islands, etc., when I saw this account of another volcano's tremendous world impact I was intrigued.
Year Without Summer lost me about mid-way through - it just wasn't interesting or informative enough for me to WANT continue.
The book started out with promise, with wonderful information about how and why the volcanic ash spread causing a progression of world-wide climate change. And some of the history of climatology and meteorology was also very interesting.
Personally, I would have loved to have more of the historical and scientific narrative enhanced with fewer key personal accounts by global region. Instead, the first half spent the majority of focus jumping back and forth between a tedious amount of personal accounts about agricultural impact in Canada and New England, or requiring more than usual wood on the fire or clothing. It distracted rather than added value to the story.
All-in-all, this book was just OK. I may skim through the second half to finish, however given that my reading list is long with many great things to read, frankly I'm not going to worry if I don't finish.
Year Without Summer lost me about mid-way through - it just wasn't interesting or informative enough for me to WANT continue.
The book started out with promise, with wonderful information about how and why the volcanic ash spread causing a progression of world-wide climate change. And some of the history of climatology and meteorology was also very interesting.
Personally, I would have loved to have more of the historical and scientific narrative enhanced with fewer key personal accounts by global region. Instead, the first half spent the majority of focus jumping back and forth between a tedious amount of personal accounts about agricultural impact in Canada and New England, or requiring more than usual wood on the fire or clothing. It distracted rather than added value to the story.
All-in-all, this book was just OK. I may skim through the second half to finish, however given that my reading list is long with many great things to read, frankly I'm not going to worry if I don't finish.
September 24, 2013
I gave up on this book and don't plan to finish it. Years ago I read an account of the eruption of Krakatoa -- it was marvelous book. It started out describing the falling ash and other signs that something was about to happen and built up to the eruption itself in 1883 and the events that followed, very suspenseful and engrossing even though you knew how it turned out. I loved it.
This book starts out with a lot of meteorologic stuff that isn't very interesting and a little hard to follow if you're not a meteorologist. Then it jumped all over the place -- e.g., I have just read about what was going on in Pennsylvania before the "summer," and the next, not even chapter but section of a chapter, jumped to Europe. It's impossible to follow in a systematic way the effect the eruption had on the world during the following year, and what it does cover isn't presented in an interesting, anecdotal way. I wasn't getting any sense of what was going on -- it continued to jump around, unusually cold weather here, unusually warm weather there, normal weather someplace else. And then it would go off on a tangent about a person or persons who lived at that time, with an apparent special fascination with Percy and Mary Shelly and her impetus for writing the Frankenstein novel. One of the most poorly organized and written books I've ever tried to read.
This book starts out with a lot of meteorologic stuff that isn't very interesting and a little hard to follow if you're not a meteorologist. Then it jumped all over the place -- e.g., I have just read about what was going on in Pennsylvania before the "summer," and the next, not even chapter but section of a chapter, jumped to Europe. It's impossible to follow in a systematic way the effect the eruption had on the world during the following year, and what it does cover isn't presented in an interesting, anecdotal way. I wasn't getting any sense of what was going on -- it continued to jump around, unusually cold weather here, unusually warm weather there, normal weather someplace else. And then it would go off on a tangent about a person or persons who lived at that time, with an apparent special fascination with Percy and Mary Shelly and her impetus for writing the Frankenstein novel. One of the most poorly organized and written books I've ever tried to read.
July 19, 2016
This book was somewhat frustrating, but rewarding as well.
Like any current non-fiction book that isn't a tech manual or motivational slogan-fest, "Year Without Summer" strives to be all things to all people. Formula: Discuss an underappreciated thing in natural history or science/technology, (cod! Krakatoa! screws! Galveston!), the social and political ramifications thereof, include earnest plea for environmental understanding - wait, no, actually the authors refrained from hitting us over the head with the considerable parallels to our own time.
I thought this book had a lot going on. The unending winter of the time played a role in the westward expansion of the US. It would have happened anyway, but the idea of Indiana and Ohio being founded by refugees from New England and Switzerland resonated with me, since I have ancestors that fit that profile. It may also be that this weather disaster was a key moment in the expansion of the role of government in the well-being of ordinary people, as effective and ineffective government responses (and private charity) are discussed.
The high amount of repetitive detail is forgiveable in my view. With it, the authors cement their case that this was a major, hitherto poorly understood calamity.
Like any current non-fiction book that isn't a tech manual or motivational slogan-fest, "Year Without Summer" strives to be all things to all people. Formula: Discuss an underappreciated thing in natural history or science/technology, (cod! Krakatoa! screws! Galveston!), the social and political ramifications thereof, include earnest plea for environmental understanding - wait, no, actually the authors refrained from hitting us over the head with the considerable parallels to our own time.
I thought this book had a lot going on. The unending winter of the time played a role in the westward expansion of the US. It would have happened anyway, but the idea of Indiana and Ohio being founded by refugees from New England and Switzerland resonated with me, since I have ancestors that fit that profile. It may also be that this weather disaster was a key moment in the expansion of the role of government in the well-being of ordinary people, as effective and ineffective government responses (and private charity) are discussed.
The high amount of repetitive detail is forgiveable in my view. With it, the authors cement their case that this was a major, hitherto poorly understood calamity.
February 21, 2017
I got this thinking it was an in depth look at Tambora's volcanic eruption in 1815, but precious little is even in the book about that event. The writing is engaging, but the subject matter leaves much to be desired.
The bulk of the material consists of EXTENSIVE (and, at times, repetitious and boring) weather reports the following summer on the North American and European continents. No mention is made of how the volcanic ash still in the atmosphere impacted the winter in the southern hemisphere.
Yes, there is some discussion on how the weather impacted the political and socio-economic atmosphere of 1816, but the majority of the book focuses on the weather. And the SAME weather, over and over again. We get it; the summer was cold.
I much preferred Simon Winchester's book on Krakatoa instead. Even though it was a different eruption, it delved into the culture of Java and how the eruption impacted the inhabitants. It also looked at the volcano itself, as well.
I wish this book had done something similar with this earlier eruption.
The bulk of the material consists of EXTENSIVE (and, at times, repetitious and boring) weather reports the following summer on the North American and European continents. No mention is made of how the volcanic ash still in the atmosphere impacted the winter in the southern hemisphere.
Yes, there is some discussion on how the weather impacted the political and socio-economic atmosphere of 1816, but the majority of the book focuses on the weather. And the SAME weather, over and over again. We get it; the summer was cold.
I much preferred Simon Winchester's book on Krakatoa instead. Even though it was a different eruption, it delved into the culture of Java and how the eruption impacted the inhabitants. It also looked at the volcano itself, as well.
I wish this book had done something similar with this earlier eruption.
April 14, 2013
Many people have heard about the eruption of Krakatoa in 1888 but when Tambora blew its stack in 1816 it was 10 times more powerful and created a cloud of ash that circled the planet and resulted in abnormally cold conditions across the world.
Mostly this book centers on the history of 1816. There’s not a lot about the actual eruption or the weather that resulted shortly afterwards, but the consequences are dealt with in detail from the mundane to the serious. Be it the gloomy days that caused Mary Shelley to stay indoors thereby coming up with an idea for a story about a guy named Frankenstein to the potato famine in Ireland, it was interesting to read about the side effects of the eruption.
A good read for anyone interested in weather, volcanoes or what a bummer it was to live through the winter of 1816-1817.
Mostly this book centers on the history of 1816. There’s not a lot about the actual eruption or the weather that resulted shortly afterwards, but the consequences are dealt with in detail from the mundane to the serious. Be it the gloomy days that caused Mary Shelley to stay indoors thereby coming up with an idea for a story about a guy named Frankenstein to the potato famine in Ireland, it was interesting to read about the side effects of the eruption.
A good read for anyone interested in weather, volcanoes or what a bummer it was to live through the winter of 1816-1817.
August 25, 2015
Meh. This book is not really about volcanoes, it is about the climate change caused after a massive explosion of Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. There are reasons the only books written about weather minutiae for a single year are almanacs...it's just not that interesting. Only the first two chapters actually talk about the volcano, everything else is the temperatures in Vermont and the drought in Pennsylvania and the horrible rains in Ireland and Switzerland, and yes, that is all interesting, but not for 250 pages. There are a few tidbits about paintings or literature or other people's output that was affected by the weather (Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" was, for me, the most interesting), but no other real redeeming pieces. Skip.
May 7, 2014
Excellent history on how the massive eruption on the island of Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 drastically effected the planet's weather. The volcanic eruption was the largest in the last 100,000 years and led to snow in June and frost in July in North America, failed crops and food riots in Europe and worldwide temperature fluctuations that baffled observers. These events are set against contemporary events like Napoleon's exile, the presidency of James Madison, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly's novel "Frankenstein" and many other interesting sidelights.
April 24, 2019
The Year Without Summer has a bit of an inverted underpants gnome problem. The underpants gnomes have an incomplete business plan: steal underpants ->_____->profit. The book’s hyperbolic title “The Volcano That…Changed History” seems the aspirational conclusion of an inversion of this structure: ____->the contents of this book->change in history.
What the book does do well is provide loads of primary source evidence that something calamitous occurred in 1816, but since the authors don’t venture into much analysis, I felt like I lacked too much information about the status quo before the event and the changes subsequent to it to come to the conclusion the title insists I should.
For example, the author beleaguers the point that Frankenstein was written that year. Should I draw the conclusion that the book would never have been written had Mount Tambora not erupted?
The assertion I found most provocative was that British attitudes toward governmental responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens changed in response to the famine of that year. But, not being a subject matter expert, I can’t draw that conclusion just based on strong evidence that 1816 was a bad year. Little evidence is provided regarding the attitudes that predate the eruption and what little is described of the political landscape after the fact, could be interpreted suggest a more evolutionary change in views rather than a revolutionary one.
One of the things that first intrigued me about this book was learning more about the climatological impacts of volcanic eruptions. Since dispersing particulate matter into our upper atmosphere is one proposed solution to climate change, I was interested in some technical treatment of this phenomenon. One of the authors is a climate scientist so there was reason for optimism on this front. Unfortunately, I feel like the technical details were dealt with at a boilerplate level. Just enough explanation was offered so that a historically focused reader could under stand the cause of what was occurring at a human scale.
In academic history, there is a bias toward providing an overabundance of evidence to substantiate any claims the author might be inclined to make. In this regard, I think the book is quite good. But the book’s title and description in the jacket seem to be an example of marketing to a popular audience exceeding what the text actually has to offer.
What the book does do well is provide loads of primary source evidence that something calamitous occurred in 1816, but since the authors don’t venture into much analysis, I felt like I lacked too much information about the status quo before the event and the changes subsequent to it to come to the conclusion the title insists I should.
For example, the author beleaguers the point that Frankenstein was written that year. Should I draw the conclusion that the book would never have been written had Mount Tambora not erupted?
The assertion I found most provocative was that British attitudes toward governmental responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens changed in response to the famine of that year. But, not being a subject matter expert, I can’t draw that conclusion just based on strong evidence that 1816 was a bad year. Little evidence is provided regarding the attitudes that predate the eruption and what little is described of the political landscape after the fact, could be interpreted suggest a more evolutionary change in views rather than a revolutionary one.
One of the things that first intrigued me about this book was learning more about the climatological impacts of volcanic eruptions. Since dispersing particulate matter into our upper atmosphere is one proposed solution to climate change, I was interested in some technical treatment of this phenomenon. One of the authors is a climate scientist so there was reason for optimism on this front. Unfortunately, I feel like the technical details were dealt with at a boilerplate level. Just enough explanation was offered so that a historically focused reader could under stand the cause of what was occurring at a human scale.
In academic history, there is a bias toward providing an overabundance of evidence to substantiate any claims the author might be inclined to make. In this regard, I think the book is quite good. But the book’s title and description in the jacket seem to be an example of marketing to a popular audience exceeding what the text actually has to offer.
January 12, 2020
While it was a bit tedious reading all the weather reports, I found the subject matter fascinating. This weather phenomenon is never mentioned in mainstream novels or histories. It must have been so in settling.
But the more things change, the more they stay the same. People were faced with a crisis, they couldn't think of a solution, so they rioted against the government. Like the government could really do anything except bankrupt itself trying to feed everyone.
I liked the personal touch, reading about people who lived through that time.
But the more things change, the more they stay the same. People were faced with a crisis, they couldn't think of a solution, so they rioted against the government. Like the government could really do anything except bankrupt itself trying to feed everyone.
I liked the personal touch, reading about people who lived through that time.
January 10, 2025
Mount Tambora is a volcano located in Indonesia. The volcano erupted in April 1815, spewing volcanic ash, debris, and lava forth. The eruption was exceptionally powerful, and the dispersion of gas wound up disrupting the climate. This climate change decimated crop production and changed temperatures, resulting in the Year Without Summer. The information about the volcano and the volcano rating scale was pretty interesting, though the book itself was repetitive and pretty dry. I'm glad this was on Audible Plus, because I would have been sad if I used my credit for it.
September 2, 2025
BOOK REVIEW - The Year Without Summer, 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History, by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman (09.28.23)
The Year Without Summer is a meticulously researched account of the dramatic climatic upheaval of 1816, tracing the chain of consequences initiated by the eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815. Drawing on a wealth of diaries, newspapers, letters, and scientific records, the Klingamans construct a vivid narrative that blends environmental science, political history, and cultural impact.
The authors thoroughly unpack the meteorological mechanisms behind the “Year Without a Summer,” charting how Tambora’s eruption plunged global temperatures and triggered devastating harvest failures. The book suffers from an overly technical focus on weather data. It becomes bogged down in meteorological minutiae.
Though the book brushes upon famine, migration, and political upheaval, it doesn't sufficiently delve into the enduring economic aftermath or broader societal transformations. The authors estimate that that the immediate volcanic fatalities were approximately 10,000. Additional deaths from famine and epidemics in the surrounding Indonesian islands, 49,000 to 90,000.
The economic impact was skyrocketing food prices, widespread bread riots, harvest collapse, and consequent migration patterns. The book, although interesting is sometimes a dense blend of environmental history and human drama, illuminating the fragile interplay between natural forces and societal change.
Quotes:
“Twenty-four hours after Tambora erupted, the ash cloud had expanded to cover an area approximately the size of Australia. Air temperatures in the region plunged dramatically, perhaps as much as twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Then a light southeasterly breeze sprang up, and over the next several days most of the ash cloud drifted over the islands west and northwest of Tambora. By the time the cloud finally departed, villages within twenty miles of the volcano were covered with ash nearly forty inches thick; those a hundred miles away found eight to ten inches of ash on the ground.”
“And on the morning of July 18, an eight‑year‑old girl living in Bath chose to awaken her aunt, a devout believer in the prophecy, by screaming ‘Aunt, Aunt, the World’s at an end!’ The words so startled the poor woman that she fell into a coma, and remained insensate throughout the following day.”
The Year Without Summer is a meticulously researched account of the dramatic climatic upheaval of 1816, tracing the chain of consequences initiated by the eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815. Drawing on a wealth of diaries, newspapers, letters, and scientific records, the Klingamans construct a vivid narrative that blends environmental science, political history, and cultural impact.
The authors thoroughly unpack the meteorological mechanisms behind the “Year Without a Summer,” charting how Tambora’s eruption plunged global temperatures and triggered devastating harvest failures. The book suffers from an overly technical focus on weather data. It becomes bogged down in meteorological minutiae.
Though the book brushes upon famine, migration, and political upheaval, it doesn't sufficiently delve into the enduring economic aftermath or broader societal transformations. The authors estimate that that the immediate volcanic fatalities were approximately 10,000. Additional deaths from famine and epidemics in the surrounding Indonesian islands, 49,000 to 90,000.
The economic impact was skyrocketing food prices, widespread bread riots, harvest collapse, and consequent migration patterns. The book, although interesting is sometimes a dense blend of environmental history and human drama, illuminating the fragile interplay between natural forces and societal change.
Quotes:
“Twenty-four hours after Tambora erupted, the ash cloud had expanded to cover an area approximately the size of Australia. Air temperatures in the region plunged dramatically, perhaps as much as twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Then a light southeasterly breeze sprang up, and over the next several days most of the ash cloud drifted over the islands west and northwest of Tambora. By the time the cloud finally departed, villages within twenty miles of the volcano were covered with ash nearly forty inches thick; those a hundred miles away found eight to ten inches of ash on the ground.”
“And on the morning of July 18, an eight‑year‑old girl living in Bath chose to awaken her aunt, a devout believer in the prophecy, by screaming ‘Aunt, Aunt, the World’s at an end!’ The words so startled the poor woman that she fell into a coma, and remained insensate throughout the following day.”
October 13, 2014
1816 is best known as 'The Year Without Summer', the year a volcanic eruption in Indonesia affected weather patterns the world over, resulting in catastrophic droughts, floods, unseasonable snows and frosts. It was the summer that gave birth to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Turner's dramatic paintings of vivid red sunsets. It was also the summer that destroyed harvests and caused untold deaths through famine and privation.
This book is more than just a meteorological history of the world in the year 1816. In fact, it could hardly be that at all, as records simply do not exist for more than a handful of countries. But for those countries - mostly Great Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United States - it is a fascinating snapshot of life in 1816 and how those countries coped with a disaster they could hardly understand.
It is only relatively recently that scientists have come to understand definitely how volcanic eruptions and the dust thrown into the stratosphere can cause changes to the weather; in 1816 the unseasonable weather was blamed on earthquakes, sunspots, disruptions to the earth's 'electrical fluid' and, inevitably, God. A volcanic eruption in a country most people had never heard of had a direct impact on millions of lives - death and disease, political unrest and civil disobedience, charity and government legislation, all were affected the eruption of Mount Tambora, particularly in a Europe just emerging from the shadow of the Napoleonic Wars.
Parts were a tad repetitive; without sounding callous, when you've read about disastrous harvests in Vermont, to read about the same thing in New Hampshire, and Maine, and New York, and Ohio, and Rhode Island, is a little tedious. But I understand that to a certain extent such repetition is necessary, to demonstrate just how widespread the devastation truly was. So I thoroughly enjoyed this book, more than I expected to.
This book is more than just a meteorological history of the world in the year 1816. In fact, it could hardly be that at all, as records simply do not exist for more than a handful of countries. But for those countries - mostly Great Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United States - it is a fascinating snapshot of life in 1816 and how those countries coped with a disaster they could hardly understand.
It is only relatively recently that scientists have come to understand definitely how volcanic eruptions and the dust thrown into the stratosphere can cause changes to the weather; in 1816 the unseasonable weather was blamed on earthquakes, sunspots, disruptions to the earth's 'electrical fluid' and, inevitably, God. A volcanic eruption in a country most people had never heard of had a direct impact on millions of lives - death and disease, political unrest and civil disobedience, charity and government legislation, all were affected the eruption of Mount Tambora, particularly in a Europe just emerging from the shadow of the Napoleonic Wars.
Parts were a tad repetitive; without sounding callous, when you've read about disastrous harvests in Vermont, to read about the same thing in New Hampshire, and Maine, and New York, and Ohio, and Rhode Island, is a little tedious. But I understand that to a certain extent such repetition is necessary, to demonstrate just how widespread the devastation truly was. So I thoroughly enjoyed this book, more than I expected to.
August 25, 2015
A unique book that juxtaposes 19th century climate change (triggered by Mt. Tambora eruption) with contemporary people's day-to-day life. Powered by newspaper excerpts, letters, and diary entries. The downside is that it becomes a bit repetitive and -- at times -- utterly boring.
There are some 'big name' contemporaries quoted: from Britain's Sir Thomas Raffles and Robert Peel, to Americans James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, up to literary giants Lord Byron and Percy & Mary Shelley. (I hasten to add, however: big chunk of testimonies are from rural area in US & Europe)
So what's the book about? Well, it's about climate change. As Mt. Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia, erupted in 1816, it ejected materials up to stratosphere that wouldn't go down for years. This led to anomalous weather pattern around the globe -- including snow in June (!) and non-stop rain through the summer.
And from this came multitude of problems. Crop failure led to bread price inflation, angry mob looting bakers and millers. In some places (particularly Ireland) typhus ravaged the population. In short: the change of weather made life hard for everyone. Near equator the eruption might be, but it wrought problems all over the place.
Perhaps naturally, belief in apocalypse spiked during the hard times. Not everyone bought it -- some skeptics actually scoffed -- but that the phenomenon was reported in newspapers is quite telling.
In the end, The Year Without Summer is about people facing climate change in their day-to-day life... which is sobering, in light of our own climate change in 21st century.
There are some 'big name' contemporaries quoted: from Britain's Sir Thomas Raffles and Robert Peel, to Americans James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, up to literary giants Lord Byron and Percy & Mary Shelley. (I hasten to add, however: big chunk of testimonies are from rural area in US & Europe)
So what's the book about? Well, it's about climate change. As Mt. Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia, erupted in 1816, it ejected materials up to stratosphere that wouldn't go down for years. This led to anomalous weather pattern around the globe -- including snow in June (!) and non-stop rain through the summer.
And from this came multitude of problems. Crop failure led to bread price inflation, angry mob looting bakers and millers. In some places (particularly Ireland) typhus ravaged the population. In short: the change of weather made life hard for everyone. Near equator the eruption might be, but it wrought problems all over the place.
Perhaps naturally, belief in apocalypse spiked during the hard times. Not everyone bought it -- some skeptics actually scoffed -- but that the phenomenon was reported in newspapers is quite telling.
In the end, The Year Without Summer is about people facing climate change in their day-to-day life... which is sobering, in light of our own climate change in 21st century.
August 18, 2021
Did not finish this, even though I got quite interested in the summer of 1816 and sought this book out. Really liked the opening section about the volcano, people's reactions, that was great. Also the little tidbits about Shelley, Mary Godwin et al were interesting (though I have a few picky things to say about this, at the end). But then we devolve into weather reports for almost every day, for mostly Europe and North America. So many exact temperatures, so many disgruntled New England farmers, etc etc. Started skimming, then skipping and then I just gave up.
Am creating a 'did not finish' shelf so I can put this book on it.
If you like weather related books, I suggest Erik Larson's excellent Isaac's Storm.
Two little picky notes about the Shelley, Mary Godwin and Byron mentions:
1. The author refers to Shelley's first wife as Harriet Wentworth. Her name was Harriet Westbrook (a quick Wikipedia check will show this), and honestly an editor should have picked this up.
2. Mary's half sister Fanny Imlay deserves her full name, she was an interesting (and terribly tragic) woman in her own right. I know it is a little thing but it bothered me. The offhand mention echoing the offhand way she was treated in her own family. I just read about her before I read this book, so I guess it stuck in my head.
One star for the beginning of the book, and the topic itself.
Am creating a 'did not finish' shelf so I can put this book on it.
If you like weather related books, I suggest Erik Larson's excellent Isaac's Storm.
Two little picky notes about the Shelley, Mary Godwin and Byron mentions:
1. The author refers to Shelley's first wife as Harriet Wentworth. Her name was Harriet Westbrook (a quick Wikipedia check will show this), and honestly an editor should have picked this up.
2. Mary's half sister Fanny Imlay deserves her full name, she was an interesting (and terribly tragic) woman in her own right. I know it is a little thing but it bothered me. The offhand mention echoing the offhand way she was treated in her own family. I just read about her before I read this book, so I guess it stuck in my head.
One star for the beginning of the book, and the topic itself.
June 9, 2013
Interesting but the title is a bit deceptive as the book primarily covers the effects of the volcanic eruption on eastern Canada and New England and, to a lesser degree, on the mid-Atlantic states plus Ireland, Britain and Europe. The response of government to the failure of crops and resulting famine is interesting. Proponents of free market economics seemed OK with starvation, death and suffering. Government and private aid was prompted primarily by a fear of revolution. The French Revolution was only two decades in the past. Overpopulation in areas where the land was already marginal for farming in Ireland, Switzerland and parts of New England prompted desperate migrations. There was a bit of fun here and there with the authors brief but wry comments on events and issues that seem very contemporary. The tale of the volcano's role in Mary Shelley's writing of Frankenstein is fascinating. Definitely worth a read if you can hold on through the necessarily detailed explanation of how the eruption affected the weather and the very repetitious and detailed coverage of events via quotes. I sure the research was long and arduous, which I respect, but perhaps the book could have been a little less lengthy.
March 19, 2013
I am fascinated by volcanoes and have read many a book on Krakatoa. I had not encountered a book on the eruption of Tambora and its effects on the climate in 1816 and beyond.
It is awe inspiring to realize just how much ash, steam, smoke, gas and other matter a volcano can expel when it erupts. Tambora sent up 55 million tons of sulphur dioxide gas when it blew over 4/11-12/1815. Can you imagine the stink? This was the largest known volcanic eruption of the last 2,000 years exceeding both Krakatoa and Mt. St. Helen's and yet most people have never heard of it.
It's impacts across the globe were extreme; crops were lost and temperatures were markedly lower than usual. Temperate climates had ice and snow as late as June and the growing seasons were curtailed. This impacted various countries abilities to feed their peoples leading to all manner of societal changes from immigration within countries and into new areas.
The book is written in a very easy to read manner and I found myself really quite enthralled. It was almost as hard to put down as a novel. The book is well researched and full of fascinating stories both global and more local.
It is awe inspiring to realize just how much ash, steam, smoke, gas and other matter a volcano can expel when it erupts. Tambora sent up 55 million tons of sulphur dioxide gas when it blew over 4/11-12/1815. Can you imagine the stink? This was the largest known volcanic eruption of the last 2,000 years exceeding both Krakatoa and Mt. St. Helen's and yet most people have never heard of it.
It's impacts across the globe were extreme; crops were lost and temperatures were markedly lower than usual. Temperate climates had ice and snow as late as June and the growing seasons were curtailed. This impacted various countries abilities to feed their peoples leading to all manner of societal changes from immigration within countries and into new areas.
The book is written in a very easy to read manner and I found myself really quite enthralled. It was almost as hard to put down as a novel. The book is well researched and full of fascinating stories both global and more local.
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