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The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century
How a seven-year cycle of rain, cold, disease, and warfare created the worst famine in European history
In May 1315, it started to rain. It didn’t stop anywhere in north Europe until August. Next came the four coldest winters in a millennium. Two separate animal epidemics killed nearly 80 percent of northern Europe’s livestock. Wars between Scotland and England, France and Flanders, and two rival claimants to the Holy Roman Empire destroyed all remaining farmland. After seven years, the combination of lost harvests, warfare, and pestilence would claim six million lives—one eighth of Europe’s total population.
William Rosen draws on a wide array of disciplines, from military history to feudal law to agricultural economics and climatology, to trace the succession of traumas that caused the Great Famine. With dramatic appearances by Scotland’s William Wallace, and the luckless Edward II and his treacherous Queen Isabella, history’s best documented episode of catastrophic climate change comes alive, with powerful implications for future calamities.
In May 1315, it started to rain. It didn’t stop anywhere in north Europe until August. Next came the four coldest winters in a millennium. Two separate animal epidemics killed nearly 80 percent of northern Europe’s livestock. Wars between Scotland and England, France and Flanders, and two rival claimants to the Holy Roman Empire destroyed all remaining farmland. After seven years, the combination of lost harvests, warfare, and pestilence would claim six million lives—one eighth of Europe’s total population.
William Rosen draws on a wide array of disciplines, from military history to feudal law to agricultural economics and climatology, to trace the succession of traumas that caused the Great Famine. With dramatic appearances by Scotland’s William Wallace, and the luckless Edward II and his treacherous Queen Isabella, history’s best documented episode of catastrophic climate change comes alive, with powerful implications for future calamities.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published May 15, 2014
89 people are currently reading
2277 people want to read
About the author
William Rosen
12 books75 followersWilliam Rosen was an historian and author who previously was an editor an publisher at Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and the Free Press for nearly twenty-five years. He lived in Princeton, New Jersey.
From recent obituary
William Rosen PRINCETON JUNCTION Author William Rosen, 61, whose works of narrative nonfiction include "Justinian's Flea" and "The Most Powerful Idea in the World: The Story of Steam, Industry and Invention," died at home on April 28, 2016, of gastrointestinal stromal cancer, according to his agent. Born in California, Rosen worked for nearly 25 years as an editor and publisher at Macmillan, Simon and Schuster and the Free Press before becoming an author. With a writing style that used anecdotes to pull together the threads of discovery and innovation, Rosen authored or co-authored books on education, traffic, antibiotics, and climate change. Bill Gates said of Rosen's work, "Rosen argues that only with the ability to measure incremental advances--such as whether a lighter part lowers fuel consumption, or one engine produces more power than another--can you achieve sustained innovation. Rosen's view fits my own view of the power of measurement." Rosen grew up in Los Angeles, CA, attended UCLA and, after a brief stint at John Wiley and Sons, moved east for publishing. He edited books authored by George Will, as well as William Bennett, Bernard Lewis, Maya Lin, and Leon Kass. But he found true fulfillment writing books instead of only publishing them.
From recent obituary
William Rosen PRINCETON JUNCTION Author William Rosen, 61, whose works of narrative nonfiction include "Justinian's Flea" and "The Most Powerful Idea in the World: The Story of Steam, Industry and Invention," died at home on April 28, 2016, of gastrointestinal stromal cancer, according to his agent. Born in California, Rosen worked for nearly 25 years as an editor and publisher at Macmillan, Simon and Schuster and the Free Press before becoming an author. With a writing style that used anecdotes to pull together the threads of discovery and innovation, Rosen authored or co-authored books on education, traffic, antibiotics, and climate change. Bill Gates said of Rosen's work, "Rosen argues that only with the ability to measure incremental advances--such as whether a lighter part lowers fuel consumption, or one engine produces more power than another--can you achieve sustained innovation. Rosen's view fits my own view of the power of measurement." Rosen grew up in Los Angeles, CA, attended UCLA and, after a brief stint at John Wiley and Sons, moved east for publishing. He edited books authored by George Will, as well as William Bennett, Bernard Lewis, Maya Lin, and Leon Kass. But he found true fulfillment writing books instead of only publishing them.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews
April 1, 2014
**I won this in a Goodreads giveaway.
It is hard for me to know how to review this book. On one had it was really interesting. I like non-fiction and I was excited to read it. There was war, climate change, exploration, political machinations and all the things that make history interesting. On the other hand, I feel like the book was trying to be too many things. Was it a book about Vikings or the war of Scottish independence? Was it about famine and the impact on the peasantry? Was it about the relationship between France & England? Was it about Edward II? There would be a fascinating chapter about Scotland and then at the end it would say, "And that is what the effect of the medieval warming period had." Well, nothing about the MWP was even mentioned in that chapter! Or, you're reading along and suddenly you get a couple of pages of dendrology or the north atlantic oscillating current. It just couldn't decide what it was. That said, I did like the book, thus the 3 stars.
It is hard for me to know how to review this book. On one had it was really interesting. I like non-fiction and I was excited to read it. There was war, climate change, exploration, political machinations and all the things that make history interesting. On the other hand, I feel like the book was trying to be too many things. Was it a book about Vikings or the war of Scottish independence? Was it about famine and the impact on the peasantry? Was it about the relationship between France & England? Was it about Edward II? There would be a fascinating chapter about Scotland and then at the end it would say, "And that is what the effect of the medieval warming period had." Well, nothing about the MWP was even mentioned in that chapter! Or, you're reading along and suddenly you get a couple of pages of dendrology or the north atlantic oscillating current. It just couldn't decide what it was. That said, I did like the book, thus the 3 stars.
June 13, 2014
I bought this book thinking it would be about the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Great Famine of the 14th Century. Color me surprised, it's really about Edward II and Robert Bruce. That would be OK, were the subtitle of the book not Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century. Annoyed, much? Bibliography looks interesting, though.
July 4, 2014
I really could not wait to review this book so aggravating did I find it. I kept wondering what were the author's intentions while I slogged through the book. Did he want to write a book about climate change and not have enough to say? Did he want to write about the famine of the 14th century and again not have enough to say? Or did he want to write about the wars - especially those between Scotland and England at that time and need the present day hook of climate change to bring in an audience?
The topic in the title, famine, actually could have been collected in one chapter. He intersperses this topic throughout the book in order to show that humanity - or the lack thereof - is partly responsible for famine. The cause of this famine he demonstrates by going over in excruciating detail every battle between Robert Bruce and Edward I and II. He shows that the wanton destruction of crops, land, and livestock by the armies and overpopulation due to good harvests lead to the famine when the Medieval Warm Period ended in endless rain and crop failure.
He ties his topics all together in his short final chapter with a warning to today's readers concerning our contributions to famine and climate change.
In addition to misleading his audience through the title and the book jacket, the author uses lots of asides within sentences which make his writing confusing, and great detail when describing the minutiae of each battle and each participant. My conclusion is that the author wanted to write about war and added famine and climate change in to hook us. I do not need to be convinced.
The topic in the title, famine, actually could have been collected in one chapter. He intersperses this topic throughout the book in order to show that humanity - or the lack thereof - is partly responsible for famine. The cause of this famine he demonstrates by going over in excruciating detail every battle between Robert Bruce and Edward I and II. He shows that the wanton destruction of crops, land, and livestock by the armies and overpopulation due to good harvests lead to the famine when the Medieval Warm Period ended in endless rain and crop failure.
He ties his topics all together in his short final chapter with a warning to today's readers concerning our contributions to famine and climate change.
In addition to misleading his audience through the title and the book jacket, the author uses lots of asides within sentences which make his writing confusing, and great detail when describing the minutiae of each battle and each participant. My conclusion is that the author wanted to write about war and added famine and climate change in to hook us. I do not need to be convinced.
March 21, 2015
Not a lot of people know that Europe's population started to drop before the Black Death hit in the mid-14th century, the subject of this book. As the subtitle indicates, a major cause of the famines that ravaged Northern Europe was climate change - not global, but localized to Northern Europe.
The author does a good job of explaining all the pieces of the puzzle, starting with the Medieval Warm Period (which allowed the Vikings to flourish and the population to climb), continuing with feudalism/manorialism, the Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire, and finishing with the onset of the Little Ice Age (which started with two years of almost daily rain). I now have a lot more sympathy for poor Edward II. It wasn't all his fault.
Although it helps to be somewhat familiar with the period, the author does a good (if occasionally breakneck-paced) overview of the scene for those new to the subject. (For those who don't know, this is the era of Braveheart and A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.)
Historical buffs will enjoy it and those who are interested in how climate affects human society can learn a lot from this book.
*Goodreads Give-away*
The author does a good job of explaining all the pieces of the puzzle, starting with the Medieval Warm Period (which allowed the Vikings to flourish and the population to climb), continuing with feudalism/manorialism, the Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire, and finishing with the onset of the Little Ice Age (which started with two years of almost daily rain). I now have a lot more sympathy for poor Edward II. It wasn't all his fault.
Although it helps to be somewhat familiar with the period, the author does a good (if occasionally breakneck-paced) overview of the scene for those new to the subject. (For those who don't know, this is the era of Braveheart and A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.)
Historical buffs will enjoy it and those who are interested in how climate affects human society can learn a lot from this book.
*Goodreads Give-away*
May 22, 2014
William Rosen is at it again! The Third Horseman wonderfully combines history and science to make an exciting book on Europe in the 14th Century.
Rosen is a popular historian, and this is the third book I've read by him. Although his background seems to be from the editing and publishing world, he seems to have now carved a niche for himself in the popular history sphere.
The Third Horseman is of course drawing our attention to the mythical third horseman of the apocalypse, who brings famine in his wake.
The Great Famine which lasted roughly 7 years in the early part of the 14th Century --although the worst years were the 1315-17 period-- completely ravaged Europe, especially North-West Europe. The reasons, according to Rosen, were mainly due to sudden change in the climate of the North Atlantic. This is somewhat backed by data recorded in tree rings and ice cores, but clearly Rosen is uncomfortable with these topics and we are advised to take his hypothesis at face value. What we do know for sure is that an era known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) abruptly came to an end in the 14th Century. The MWP --which lasted from the 8th to the 14th Centuries-- was marked by higher average temperatures across the globe than any time, well since the advent of early European civilization. It was certainly far warmer (about 1-3 degrees centigrade warmer, per annum, which is heck of a lot) in the MWP than say the Roman Empire. According to Rosen, and many other historians now, the MWP uncannily coincides with the heyday of the so-called Dark Ages (Rosen doesn't use this term, he prefers early Middle Ages). Feudalism and the Church rule, and we can see both these receding with the warm temperatures.
The sudden change in climate in the North Atlantic meant that NW Europe received devastating rainfall in 1315. This lead to wholescale destruction of farmland in England, the Low Countries, France, and although the records are somewhat sketchy here: Scandinavia, Germany and the Baltic. Since these were the days before any kind of nation-states existed (although, France and England were somewhat on that path), and no central authority existed and trade was limited, famine was sure to follow. Rosen spends quite a bit of time detailing the horrific effects of food-deprivation on an already malnourished, mainly peasant population of Europe. As if agriculture weren't alone hit, Europe was also hit by a barrage of diseases which mainly affected cattle (England and Flanders both depended on sheep, indeed as Rosen puts it: English economy was wool). Whether this was a freak co-incidence or related to the anomalous climate is left unexplained.
The mortality rate approached 10% across most of Europe, and in certain places such as towns (although townspeople were richer, they didn't produce their own food which really came back to haunt them) or border areas where nobody's writ ran, a staggering 20% to 30% people died.
However, most of the book is given over to the other major cause of the famine, and another horseman of the apocalypse: war. This to me was the main thread that gave narrative drive to the book. Rosen excels at writing with verve and brought alive 14th Century feuding, mainly between England and Scotland. William Wallace (since this a popular history book, references to Braveheart are many), Longshanks and Robert the Bruce regularly appear. Also intertwined are few episodes set in France, mainly the fight between the Flemings and the nascent French state; and the last bit even covers the Great Famine's effect on Germany coupled with war between two rival claimants for the Holy Roman Empire's throne.
It is clear that if the 14th Century European world wasn't so violent, the famine's effects wouldn't be so dreadful. The raids carried out by the English, Scots, French and Flemings in their rivals territories, especially when these areas' agricultural production had taken a severe hit, further damaged the chances of the villagers recovering from the famine. Unfortunately, they paid the brunt of the costs of the war, and a difference can be noticed in that usually before the 14th Century, in the MWP, the armies put on the field where usually much smaller and the wars didn't last as long. But the Scots managed to turn the fight between kings and lords into a fight for Scotland itself, probably the very first instance of nationalism. This prolonged the conflict into a decades-long struggle (one can say it has resurfaced, only using democracy and referendums as vehicle now thankfully). The unique situation of the highly urbanised Flemings who revolted is also discussed, and Rosen convincingly paints the picture that they were such a problem for the French that all plans of an French invasion of England in support of the Scots were shelved (something I used to wonder about). So, although in the end Flanders was successfully assimilated by the French kingdom, they helped the Scots stay independent for centuries more, something that bears thinking about according to me.
There are quite a few negative things I can talk about this book. At times, the narrative jumps far too quickly among far too many topics, especially in the beginning. Such as: climate change, physics, ocean currents, Vikings, climate again, farming, England, the Norse, Greenland, marketing and finally climate again! It feels like you're reading a stream-of-conciousness rather than a book. This gave a jarring effect that the book wasn't edited enough, shocking considering most of Rosen's career before he took to writing was spent in editing. And considering that I thought these were flaws in his earlier works I've read, Rosen has clearly not altered his style. Pity. Because they can turn a truly well written, exceptional book into merely a good book. Also, his penchant for bizarre, patronizing, diversions continues. In a book about a 6th Century plague, he talked about the "Cambrian Explosion of life" a phenomena that occurred 500 million years ago which in no way adds to the narrative. Here he talks about fluid mechanics, battle at the Stamford Bridge and a sundry other things that suspiciously look like padding. Also there are many, many footnotes which add a few bon mots and interesting facts to the book, but otherwise take you out of the narrative (especially since they weren't hyperlinked properly in my e-ARC). Moreover, for a book that should be about famine, its spends most of its time on military history. While I personally don't have a problem with this since I enjoy a battle description nearly as much as the next guy, for people who picked this book up to learn just about the famine and its wider ramifications on Europe, they will be disappointed at the bulk of what they have to read.
Overall the Third Horseman was fun to read. Rosen's skill remains at combining many topics including history, economics and science and making a narrative out of the mash without giving it a stodgy, academic feel. He also writes for a lay-reader and you can pick this up knowing only enough about history from having watched Braveheart and the Vikings. A more tightly edited and dare I say it, more researched book would have made it immeasurably better.
3.5 on 5 stars
Full Disclosure: I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a review.
Rosen is a popular historian, and this is the third book I've read by him. Although his background seems to be from the editing and publishing world, he seems to have now carved a niche for himself in the popular history sphere.
The Third Horseman is of course drawing our attention to the mythical third horseman of the apocalypse, who brings famine in his wake.
The Great Famine which lasted roughly 7 years in the early part of the 14th Century --although the worst years were the 1315-17 period-- completely ravaged Europe, especially North-West Europe. The reasons, according to Rosen, were mainly due to sudden change in the climate of the North Atlantic. This is somewhat backed by data recorded in tree rings and ice cores, but clearly Rosen is uncomfortable with these topics and we are advised to take his hypothesis at face value. What we do know for sure is that an era known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) abruptly came to an end in the 14th Century. The MWP --which lasted from the 8th to the 14th Centuries-- was marked by higher average temperatures across the globe than any time, well since the advent of early European civilization. It was certainly far warmer (about 1-3 degrees centigrade warmer, per annum, which is heck of a lot) in the MWP than say the Roman Empire. According to Rosen, and many other historians now, the MWP uncannily coincides with the heyday of the so-called Dark Ages (Rosen doesn't use this term, he prefers early Middle Ages). Feudalism and the Church rule, and we can see both these receding with the warm temperatures.
The sudden change in climate in the North Atlantic meant that NW Europe received devastating rainfall in 1315. This lead to wholescale destruction of farmland in England, the Low Countries, France, and although the records are somewhat sketchy here: Scandinavia, Germany and the Baltic. Since these were the days before any kind of nation-states existed (although, France and England were somewhat on that path), and no central authority existed and trade was limited, famine was sure to follow. Rosen spends quite a bit of time detailing the horrific effects of food-deprivation on an already malnourished, mainly peasant population of Europe. As if agriculture weren't alone hit, Europe was also hit by a barrage of diseases which mainly affected cattle (England and Flanders both depended on sheep, indeed as Rosen puts it: English economy was wool). Whether this was a freak co-incidence or related to the anomalous climate is left unexplained.
The mortality rate approached 10% across most of Europe, and in certain places such as towns (although townspeople were richer, they didn't produce their own food which really came back to haunt them) or border areas where nobody's writ ran, a staggering 20% to 30% people died.
However, most of the book is given over to the other major cause of the famine, and another horseman of the apocalypse: war. This to me was the main thread that gave narrative drive to the book. Rosen excels at writing with verve and brought alive 14th Century feuding, mainly between England and Scotland. William Wallace (since this a popular history book, references to Braveheart are many), Longshanks and Robert the Bruce regularly appear. Also intertwined are few episodes set in France, mainly the fight between the Flemings and the nascent French state; and the last bit even covers the Great Famine's effect on Germany coupled with war between two rival claimants for the Holy Roman Empire's throne.
It is clear that if the 14th Century European world wasn't so violent, the famine's effects wouldn't be so dreadful. The raids carried out by the English, Scots, French and Flemings in their rivals territories, especially when these areas' agricultural production had taken a severe hit, further damaged the chances of the villagers recovering from the famine. Unfortunately, they paid the brunt of the costs of the war, and a difference can be noticed in that usually before the 14th Century, in the MWP, the armies put on the field where usually much smaller and the wars didn't last as long. But the Scots managed to turn the fight between kings and lords into a fight for Scotland itself, probably the very first instance of nationalism. This prolonged the conflict into a decades-long struggle (one can say it has resurfaced, only using democracy and referendums as vehicle now thankfully). The unique situation of the highly urbanised Flemings who revolted is also discussed, and Rosen convincingly paints the picture that they were such a problem for the French that all plans of an French invasion of England in support of the Scots were shelved (something I used to wonder about). So, although in the end Flanders was successfully assimilated by the French kingdom, they helped the Scots stay independent for centuries more, something that bears thinking about according to me.
There are quite a few negative things I can talk about this book. At times, the narrative jumps far too quickly among far too many topics, especially in the beginning. Such as: climate change, physics, ocean currents, Vikings, climate again, farming, England, the Norse, Greenland, marketing and finally climate again! It feels like you're reading a stream-of-conciousness rather than a book. This gave a jarring effect that the book wasn't edited enough, shocking considering most of Rosen's career before he took to writing was spent in editing. And considering that I thought these were flaws in his earlier works I've read, Rosen has clearly not altered his style. Pity. Because they can turn a truly well written, exceptional book into merely a good book. Also, his penchant for bizarre, patronizing, diversions continues. In a book about a 6th Century plague, he talked about the "Cambrian Explosion of life" a phenomena that occurred 500 million years ago which in no way adds to the narrative. Here he talks about fluid mechanics, battle at the Stamford Bridge and a sundry other things that suspiciously look like padding. Also there are many, many footnotes which add a few bon mots and interesting facts to the book, but otherwise take you out of the narrative (especially since they weren't hyperlinked properly in my e-ARC). Moreover, for a book that should be about famine, its spends most of its time on military history. While I personally don't have a problem with this since I enjoy a battle description nearly as much as the next guy, for people who picked this book up to learn just about the famine and its wider ramifications on Europe, they will be disappointed at the bulk of what they have to read.
Overall the Third Horseman was fun to read. Rosen's skill remains at combining many topics including history, economics and science and making a narrative out of the mash without giving it a stodgy, academic feel. He also writes for a lay-reader and you can pick this up knowing only enough about history from having watched Braveheart and the Vikings. A more tightly edited and dare I say it, more researched book would have made it immeasurably better.
3.5 on 5 stars
Full Disclosure: I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a review.
September 7, 2023
Setting: 793-1328 A.D.; Britain and Europe.
This was a quite fascinating book about a seven-year famine that ravaged Britain and the northern states of Europe between 1315 and 1322, resulting in thousands of deaths throughout the area.
The author explains how the four centuries before, known as the Medieval Warm Period, had caused a population explosion across Europe, with the result that much more land had been put under cultivation to meet this additional demand - however, much of this land was largely unsuitable for crops and produced low yields, which ultimately proved fateful when several years of persistent rain and severe winters struck over seven successive years.
There was also quite a lot of background, going back to 793 AD and the travels of the Norsemen (Viking) and 800 AD and the history of the Holy Roman Empire. The outcomes of these travels and the constant wars between England and Scotland and various other European countries exacerbated the effects of the famine and were provided as detailed background to the story which, to a certain extent, detracted from the subject matter of the book title due to its extensive detail, hence my 3-star rating. Still an intriguing read about an event in history that I was unaware of - 7/10.
This was a quite fascinating book about a seven-year famine that ravaged Britain and the northern states of Europe between 1315 and 1322, resulting in thousands of deaths throughout the area.
The author explains how the four centuries before, known as the Medieval Warm Period, had caused a population explosion across Europe, with the result that much more land had been put under cultivation to meet this additional demand - however, much of this land was largely unsuitable for crops and produced low yields, which ultimately proved fateful when several years of persistent rain and severe winters struck over seven successive years.
There was also quite a lot of background, going back to 793 AD and the travels of the Norsemen (Viking) and 800 AD and the history of the Holy Roman Empire. The outcomes of these travels and the constant wars between England and Scotland and various other European countries exacerbated the effects of the famine and were provided as detailed background to the story which, to a certain extent, detracted from the subject matter of the book title due to its extensive detail, hence my 3-star rating. Still an intriguing read about an event in history that I was unaware of - 7/10.
September 1, 2014
**Goodreads Advance Reader copy**
I'll be honest, I probably get more excited about an historical examination of famine than the average reader. That said, it doesn't take a history nut to enjoy The Third Horseman. The easy conversational tone and cheeky footnotes keep the narrative flowing while the new perspective and information make for a fascinating story.
The Third Horseman addresses the Great Famine of the early 14th century, looking at the interaction of climate, economics, and political intrigue in the creation of devastating events, and their particular effects on the common man. The story is very much seated in England (and laterally in France), using the reign of Edward II and the struggles over Scottish independence as a lens to view the famine and its effects.
I was not prepared for the heavy focus on England. The story could as easily be told from a variety of regional perspectives, and I was interested to read more about the rest of the continent. However the author is well aware of this, and, facing the impracticality of including every story line, chose the one that worked for him. It works for the reader as well; and the benefit of focusing primarily on one area is the level of detail it allows him to provide.
There are inevitably many theories explaining any era of history; our accounts are always biased towards the records that survive. Rosen expands those accounts by drawing from a variety of disciplines and sources. I appreciated the anthropological approach; the premise that how we organize ourselves as humans (as animals) starts with how we get food from the land. He pieces together climate data from dendrochronology and arctic ice core samples; gauges food distribution using ethnobotany and modern humanitarian efforts, botanical knowledge of plant production and economic studies of pricing, trade, and production; all along with the classic sources of historical records and chronicles.
The most interesting facet of this book is the way the author uses this varied information to sketch out the life of the lower classes in England. While the majority of surviving records focus on the nobility and the ecclesiastics, these new sources (I'm reading a proof copy, but a great number of the non-contemporary references seem to be papers and writings from the last decade) allow him to postulate what life was like for a peasant, a farmer, a townsman, a soldier. This is especially important when we're talking famine; as he says, often these crises are not a total lack of food, but a shortage; and the poor starve first.
Ultimately, the book paints a clear picture from our own history of how an ecological disturbance can become a catastrophe when combined with an unequal economic structure and capricious decision-making on a political level; and how it is the working classes who bear the brunt of that damage. It's a lesson we can't afford to ignore in the present.
I'll be honest, I probably get more excited about an historical examination of famine than the average reader. That said, it doesn't take a history nut to enjoy The Third Horseman. The easy conversational tone and cheeky footnotes keep the narrative flowing while the new perspective and information make for a fascinating story.
The Third Horseman addresses the Great Famine of the early 14th century, looking at the interaction of climate, economics, and political intrigue in the creation of devastating events, and their particular effects on the common man. The story is very much seated in England (and laterally in France), using the reign of Edward II and the struggles over Scottish independence as a lens to view the famine and its effects.
I was not prepared for the heavy focus on England. The story could as easily be told from a variety of regional perspectives, and I was interested to read more about the rest of the continent. However the author is well aware of this, and, facing the impracticality of including every story line, chose the one that worked for him. It works for the reader as well; and the benefit of focusing primarily on one area is the level of detail it allows him to provide.
There are inevitably many theories explaining any era of history; our accounts are always biased towards the records that survive. Rosen expands those accounts by drawing from a variety of disciplines and sources. I appreciated the anthropological approach; the premise that how we organize ourselves as humans (as animals) starts with how we get food from the land. He pieces together climate data from dendrochronology and arctic ice core samples; gauges food distribution using ethnobotany and modern humanitarian efforts, botanical knowledge of plant production and economic studies of pricing, trade, and production; all along with the classic sources of historical records and chronicles.
The most interesting facet of this book is the way the author uses this varied information to sketch out the life of the lower classes in England. While the majority of surviving records focus on the nobility and the ecclesiastics, these new sources (I'm reading a proof copy, but a great number of the non-contemporary references seem to be papers and writings from the last decade) allow him to postulate what life was like for a peasant, a farmer, a townsman, a soldier. This is especially important when we're talking famine; as he says, often these crises are not a total lack of food, but a shortage; and the poor starve first.
Ultimately, the book paints a clear picture from our own history of how an ecological disturbance can become a catastrophe when combined with an unequal economic structure and capricious decision-making on a political level; and how it is the working classes who bear the brunt of that damage. It's a lesson we can't afford to ignore in the present.
June 1, 2019
This is the second book I've read by this author, and the second time I felt duped by the title of his book - the first time being Justinian's Flea, which was about anything BUT the plague for 99% of the book.
This should have been called "The Four Horsemen" or something like that, because the book was more about war than anything else, with cameos by plague, death, and famine. I don't know if the author thought that subtitling it with climate change would hook more readers or what, but it really wasn't the focus of this.
But hey, I learned way more than I was expecting to about the war for Scottish independence!
This should have been called "The Four Horsemen" or something like that, because the book was more about war than anything else, with cameos by plague, death, and famine. I don't know if the author thought that subtitling it with climate change would hook more readers or what, but it really wasn't the focus of this.
But hey, I learned way more than I was expecting to about the war for Scottish independence!
March 23, 2014
(won in Goodreads giveaway)
A well-researched, and detailed history of the benighted 14th century,full of wars,political machinations,territorial disputes,nation-building and grabbing, weather extremes, crop failures, animal epidemics, overuse of available farmland,inevitable famine and wide spread starvation(the third horseman)...rather like some of the third world countries we hear about on the news these days, for those who have been paying attention.There's no natural disaster that man can't make worse by his ill use of resources, especially the persistent and nasty habit of ravishing lands and peoples to make war, seems to be the general theme of the book and one that's hard to argue with.Along with these man-made calamities, the history is made worse by Natures's careless capacity to,say, rain from May thru August of 1315 and thereby wash away all fertile top soil or have the coldest winters in decades, freezing harbors and cutting off maritime trade, isolating cities from food supplies and then leading to extravagant flooding,repeating the lost harvests again. Crowning the cake as it were, we also have the parallel, detailed saga of the hapless King Edward II of English, possibly one of the most inept rulers the Brits were unluckly enough to have.While nature eroded his country's ability to feed itself, Edward spend a lot of time finding battles to fight,mostly against the Scots and the French,depleting his resources,demoralizing his armies, and being generally despised by his wife and fellow royals for his alleged blatant homosexuality (and the tactless positioning of his lovers in key ruling positions). Rosen has a dry,sly wit, and there are surprisingly many laugh a loud moments,for which one is grateful in a chronicle of this much suffering and idiocy.Then there's the inevitable summing up;what have we learned from this experience? Clearly, not much (witness Darfur, Somalia, Sudan,etc etc) although you must give credit to Rosen for trying,with this scathing slice of a century, to get some ears to listen.What's that Mr. Toynbee?.."he who doesn't learn from history is condemned..."
A well-researched, and detailed history of the benighted 14th century,full of wars,political machinations,territorial disputes,nation-building and grabbing, weather extremes, crop failures, animal epidemics, overuse of available farmland,inevitable famine and wide spread starvation(the third horseman)...rather like some of the third world countries we hear about on the news these days, for those who have been paying attention.There's no natural disaster that man can't make worse by his ill use of resources, especially the persistent and nasty habit of ravishing lands and peoples to make war, seems to be the general theme of the book and one that's hard to argue with.Along with these man-made calamities, the history is made worse by Natures's careless capacity to,say, rain from May thru August of 1315 and thereby wash away all fertile top soil or have the coldest winters in decades, freezing harbors and cutting off maritime trade, isolating cities from food supplies and then leading to extravagant flooding,repeating the lost harvests again. Crowning the cake as it were, we also have the parallel, detailed saga of the hapless King Edward II of English, possibly one of the most inept rulers the Brits were unluckly enough to have.While nature eroded his country's ability to feed itself, Edward spend a lot of time finding battles to fight,mostly against the Scots and the French,depleting his resources,demoralizing his armies, and being generally despised by his wife and fellow royals for his alleged blatant homosexuality (and the tactless positioning of his lovers in key ruling positions). Rosen has a dry,sly wit, and there are surprisingly many laugh a loud moments,for which one is grateful in a chronicle of this much suffering and idiocy.Then there's the inevitable summing up;what have we learned from this experience? Clearly, not much (witness Darfur, Somalia, Sudan,etc etc) although you must give credit to Rosen for trying,with this scathing slice of a century, to get some ears to listen.What's that Mr. Toynbee?.."he who doesn't learn from history is condemned..."
July 13, 2014
Man, you did not want to live in the fourteenth century!
Thirty years before the Black Death wiped out at least a third of Europe, there was another devastating catastrophe that seemed to come right out of the Old Testament. First came the rains--155 days straight--then the crop failures, the cold, then disease: rinderpest killed 65 percent of England’s cattle, sheep, and goats, and something called gaspers killed half of all European horses. In 1316 “there was no wine in the whole kingdom of France.” Inflation skyrocketed. Economies crumbled. Wars broke out. And it went on for seven years.
The title, though, is a bit misleading. This isn't really about climate change, though Rosen is sure to point out how the end of the 400-year-old Medieval Warming Period was the catalyst for the Great Famine. Much of the book is focused on the Scottish War(s) for Independence. It opens with Edward I battling William Wallace, straight out of Braveheart and it ends with Robert Bruce securing the newly fee kingdom of Scotland. In between is a pretty straight forward history of the ignoble reign of Edward II.
Thirty years before the Black Death wiped out at least a third of Europe, there was another devastating catastrophe that seemed to come right out of the Old Testament. First came the rains--155 days straight--then the crop failures, the cold, then disease: rinderpest killed 65 percent of England’s cattle, sheep, and goats, and something called gaspers killed half of all European horses. In 1316 “there was no wine in the whole kingdom of France.” Inflation skyrocketed. Economies crumbled. Wars broke out. And it went on for seven years.
The title, though, is a bit misleading. This isn't really about climate change, though Rosen is sure to point out how the end of the 400-year-old Medieval Warming Period was the catalyst for the Great Famine. Much of the book is focused on the Scottish War(s) for Independence. It opens with Edward I battling William Wallace, straight out of Braveheart and it ends with Robert Bruce securing the newly fee kingdom of Scotland. In between is a pretty straight forward history of the ignoble reign of Edward II.
February 13, 2023
This book is well written but it should have been called “The Second Horseman”. This book is almost entirely about the war between Scotland and England— with some other wars littered in at times but not one theme is more constant than the Bruce vs Edward storyline. A tiny bit of weather science appears but not nearly as much as one would expect. I was expecting an entirely different book based on the title, one about The Great Famine. Even reading the last 3 or 4 paragraphs of the epilogue felt out of place because it focused on the idea of famine longer than most parts of the book.
November 22, 2020
I really had high hopes for this book; I wanted more information about how weather incidents affected historical events. But no, it seems to me that this title was a clever excuse to put forth yet another book about the war between Edward I, Edward II and the Scots. I can't see where the weather had anything to do with it except that years of famine wreaked havoc on the population, abetted by the horrors of warfare that destroyed what little food they could coax from the ground. And that's it, in a nutshell. We didn't really get to the topic of the climate until chapter 6. Chapter 1 through 5 gave us a "quick and dirty" medieval history lesson. I admit I knew little about the famine, but the subject could easily have been dealt with in an article rather than a whole book.
July 4, 2018
Zu ca. 70% handelt das Buch von schottischen Unabhängigkeitsbestrebungen – nicht uninteressant, aber nicht das, was der Titel verspricht. Zu ca. 90% besteht das Buch aus der Nacherzählung von Herrschaftsintrigen, die auch nicht uninteressant sind, sich aber ungefähr so lesen wie Zusammenfassungen von "Game of Thrones"-Folgen, also sehr verwirrend und ohne Film unmerkbar. Nur aus Pflichtgefühl zu Ende gelesen, und weil das Dampfmaschinenbuch desselben Autors so toll war, dass ich nicht glauben konnte, dass es hier nicht doch noch irgendwann lohnen würde.
September 22, 2014
This was a greatly disappointing book. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. To look at the title, you’d think this would primarily be a book about how climate change 700 years ago caused a famine in Europe. And yeah, there is some of that. You get that in the first chapter. Then it veers elsewhere. The heart of this book focuses on the reigns of Edward I and Edward II of England (AKA the kings from the movie Braveheart). You get the Edwards fighting the Scots, and the second Edward flopping with everyone until his wife and her love have him overthrown and killed. That’s the real focus of the book.
But the title talks about climate change and famine. The fuck? Oh, there is talk of it throughout. The opening chapter, as stated above, focuses on it. Midway through there are a pair of chapters get back to it. And throughout virtually every chapter will discuss the climate in passing – but that’s it: done in passing. You end up with two separate books that have nothing to do with each other sharing space. It’s like putting BBQ sauce in ice cream – it just doesn’t mix. It’s not a bad history of the Edwards – but I didn’t set out to read a book about the Edwards. So it’s deeply annoying. It’s not bad on climate change – but you’ll go 50 pages with little discussion of it.
Rosen wrote another book that’s always sounded interesting to me – Justinian’s Flea. But having read this one, I doubt I’d want to tackle that one. I have no faith in this author.
OK, there is good stuff on climate change here. From 900-1300 you had the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) where the currents from the Atlantic were ideal, causing Europe to warm up. Combined with greater land reclamation, you had a massive population rise. (People didn’t make better use of land per acre, but there was more farmland). You even had vineyards in England. Population tripled – from 10 to 30 million. Rosen even links it to the rise of the Vikings (but they actually predate the MWP by a bit). Then, around 1300 the currents changed just a tad – enough to start the Little Ice Age. The early 14th century might be the coldest period on record.
The shift in weather came around the time of Braveheart. Also hurting things, Europeans had overfarmed, and there was less nitrogen (the key nutrient) in the soil. Then came the rain of 1315. The best guess here: the very cold winters of 1309-12 (when the ice pack connected Greenland and Iceland) caused a huge mass of air to rise over north Europe, condense into water, and come back as rain. It was only north Europe, not all of it. By one count, 155 days straight of rain happened. You thus had the worst winters and the worst rains. The entire topsoil washed away. Cannibalism ensued. At one point in 1315, the king and queen of England visited a town, but the town had no bread to give the monarchs. Bad weather stayed. In 1318, the Baltic froze for the 3rd time since 1303. 1321 had drought causing famine. Rinderpest wiped out most of the cattle and soon after the sheep population took a sharp hit. The first great peasant revolt of the century was Flanders 1323.
Rosen also makes a passing note on the importance of milling. It was a power nobles had – mills turned grain into usable food, and was a source of taxation for grain growers.
But the title talks about climate change and famine. The fuck? Oh, there is talk of it throughout. The opening chapter, as stated above, focuses on it. Midway through there are a pair of chapters get back to it. And throughout virtually every chapter will discuss the climate in passing – but that’s it: done in passing. You end up with two separate books that have nothing to do with each other sharing space. It’s like putting BBQ sauce in ice cream – it just doesn’t mix. It’s not a bad history of the Edwards – but I didn’t set out to read a book about the Edwards. So it’s deeply annoying. It’s not bad on climate change – but you’ll go 50 pages with little discussion of it.
Rosen wrote another book that’s always sounded interesting to me – Justinian’s Flea. But having read this one, I doubt I’d want to tackle that one. I have no faith in this author.
OK, there is good stuff on climate change here. From 900-1300 you had the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) where the currents from the Atlantic were ideal, causing Europe to warm up. Combined with greater land reclamation, you had a massive population rise. (People didn’t make better use of land per acre, but there was more farmland). You even had vineyards in England. Population tripled – from 10 to 30 million. Rosen even links it to the rise of the Vikings (but they actually predate the MWP by a bit). Then, around 1300 the currents changed just a tad – enough to start the Little Ice Age. The early 14th century might be the coldest period on record.
The shift in weather came around the time of Braveheart. Also hurting things, Europeans had overfarmed, and there was less nitrogen (the key nutrient) in the soil. Then came the rain of 1315. The best guess here: the very cold winters of 1309-12 (when the ice pack connected Greenland and Iceland) caused a huge mass of air to rise over north Europe, condense into water, and come back as rain. It was only north Europe, not all of it. By one count, 155 days straight of rain happened. You thus had the worst winters and the worst rains. The entire topsoil washed away. Cannibalism ensued. At one point in 1315, the king and queen of England visited a town, but the town had no bread to give the monarchs. Bad weather stayed. In 1318, the Baltic froze for the 3rd time since 1303. 1321 had drought causing famine. Rinderpest wiped out most of the cattle and soon after the sheep population took a sharp hit. The first great peasant revolt of the century was Flanders 1323.
Rosen also makes a passing note on the importance of milling. It was a power nobles had – mills turned grain into usable food, and was a source of taxation for grain growers.
December 5, 2014
Pros: lots of information, political components told like a story with digressions on economics, weather, etc.,
Cons: I personally found the weather talk - though essential to the subject of the book - dryly told and boringly technical
This is an examination of the effects of the end of the medieval warm period during the reign of King Edward II of England. The book gives some background into the population explosion and increased farming that took place during the 400 hundred years when Europe experienced warmer temperatures (including the Viking expansion into Greenland), before delving into the political trials England faced at the time. Much of the book is given over to the war between England and Scotland and how it affected politics (Scotland allied with France at times to force England to back off) and economics (Scotland raided the English border over and over again, forcing the king to raise armies, draining his coffers). Two chapters - of particular interest to me - detailed the effects of the wet, cold weather on crops and the diseases that accompanied the resulting famines, decimating herds across England and the Continent.
While I found some of the weather discourse too technical and therefore boring, the rest of the book was very readable and fascinating.
If you’re interested in how politics and the weather can combine to created a famine, and what else famine brings with it, this is a great book. Similarly, if the politics of England and Scotland or the lives and times of Edward the first and, predominantly the second, interest you, then definitely give this book a go.
Cons: I personally found the weather talk - though essential to the subject of the book - dryly told and boringly technical
This is an examination of the effects of the end of the medieval warm period during the reign of King Edward II of England. The book gives some background into the population explosion and increased farming that took place during the 400 hundred years when Europe experienced warmer temperatures (including the Viking expansion into Greenland), before delving into the political trials England faced at the time. Much of the book is given over to the war between England and Scotland and how it affected politics (Scotland allied with France at times to force England to back off) and economics (Scotland raided the English border over and over again, forcing the king to raise armies, draining his coffers). Two chapters - of particular interest to me - detailed the effects of the wet, cold weather on crops and the diseases that accompanied the resulting famines, decimating herds across England and the Continent.
While I found some of the weather discourse too technical and therefore boring, the rest of the book was very readable and fascinating.
If you’re interested in how politics and the weather can combine to created a famine, and what else famine brings with it, this is a great book. Similarly, if the politics of England and Scotland or the lives and times of Edward the first and, predominantly the second, interest you, then definitely give this book a go.
October 6, 2024
An enthralling history, depicting a climate induced economic catastrophe……..but wait for it……not one caused by man, like the one towards which we are hurtling today borne out of myopic greed in the advanced economies.
August 23, 2014
I read the first half of this book in medium dudgeon over the glaring mismatch between title (climate and famine) and content (war between England and Scotland, the life of Edward II). Then I had the insight that its hodgepodge of war stories, 700-year-old gossip, animal husbandry, weather, and religious politics is actually quite authentically medieval, and I started having more fun with it.
Still, it's not at all what I signed up for; I have an interest in the history of everyday life and even with realistic expectations of medieval record-keeping, there is almost nothing in this book about what the famine was actually like to live through. Even the chronology of floods, crop failure, rinderpest, collapse of the wool trade--which should be simple--is presented in a scattered way. And then there's the geography: the famine affected all of Europe but the author focuses on England with just enough attention to France and Germany to make you wonder why he bothered.
Interested in the middle ages? The book you want is A Distant Mirror. This one was, for me, two stars in its present state; three if it had been titled "Edward II's Reign and its Miscellaneous Disasters."
Still, it's not at all what I signed up for; I have an interest in the history of everyday life and even with realistic expectations of medieval record-keeping, there is almost nothing in this book about what the famine was actually like to live through. Even the chronology of floods, crop failure, rinderpest, collapse of the wool trade--which should be simple--is presented in a scattered way. And then there's the geography: the famine affected all of Europe but the author focuses on England with just enough attention to France and Germany to make you wonder why he bothered.
Interested in the middle ages? The book you want is A Distant Mirror. This one was, for me, two stars in its present state; three if it had been titled "Edward II's Reign and its Miscellaneous Disasters."
July 11, 2015
This is not a book about climate change. It's sort of a book about a great famine. But it's mostly a book about wars of succession related to England, Scotland and Northern Europe. If you want to read about what royal snubbed another royal in the 1300's, read this book (kind of like reading a reaaaallly old copy of people magazine).
I'm trying to figure out why this was marketed as a book about climate change. My guess is the author/publisher was going to market it as 'The Real Game of Thrones' but then the lawyers got involved and brought up the likelihood of being sued. So some extra research was done and they realized another way they could make 14th century succession and sovereignty exciting: tie it into the preceding Medieval Warm Period and the sudden cooling and moisturizing climes of the 1300's. Viola - tie in to current events and obsession with apocalyptic flavors.
I learned about history. There were some interesting facts in this book - like the changing tactics of land battles and some of the interplay of famine and feudal society. But I would still like to read the book that was promised on the front and back cover.
I'm trying to figure out why this was marketed as a book about climate change. My guess is the author/publisher was going to market it as 'The Real Game of Thrones' but then the lawyers got involved and brought up the likelihood of being sued. So some extra research was done and they realized another way they could make 14th century succession and sovereignty exciting: tie it into the preceding Medieval Warm Period and the sudden cooling and moisturizing climes of the 1300's. Viola - tie in to current events and obsession with apocalyptic flavors.
I learned about history. There were some interesting facts in this book - like the changing tactics of land battles and some of the interplay of famine and feudal society. But I would still like to read the book that was promised on the front and back cover.
June 19, 2015
Fascinating. Seriously, if you have any interest in medieval European history, this is a must read. (The title might be more accurate if it read 'climate fluctuation') I often struggle with straight nonfiction books since they tend to be so dry. Generally the older the history being discussed, the more it seems to be a recitation of facts. This book though, is engaging and involves a variety of disciplines. It discusses social structure, political motivations, farming techniques, battles, physics (and others) as well as how weather effected the people of the time. I hope I didn't make it sound boring, because it isn't! It is 260 pages of amazing. This isn't even about one of my favorite periods. I tend to prefer older (1100 to ~1220) and later (1450 on, more specifically English history), but even so I really enjoyed reading this.
I also learned that epizootic, is in fact, a real scientific term. (An epidemic in an animal population) My grandpa always used to say 'I got the epizootic' whenever he caught a cold. I always figured it was something he made up, joker that he was.
I also learned that epizootic, is in fact, a real scientific term. (An epidemic in an animal population) My grandpa always used to say 'I got the epizootic' whenever he caught a cold. I always figured it was something he made up, joker that he was.
October 10, 2020
Ok. So, like many others have commented, this book has very little to do with the Great Famine of 1315. Learning more about the Great Famine was the entire reason I wanted to read this book, but instead I was treated to a history lesson about Robert the Bruce, William Wallace and King Edward II, and viscous 14th century warfare. The book was very fascinating and was delivered in such a way that I felt like I was back in a university lecture- not too data heavy and plenty compelling. I give it 3 stars because it was completely not what I was looking for (seriously, not about climate change or the Great Famine, haha, what is WITH this title?!), but I ended up liking it anyway.
October 10, 2019
Interesting overview of the period; much content. Alas, poor editing, some failures in logic; and a good deal of exaggeration.
April 21, 2022
This book was an Audible read that I enjoyed while learning of history during 14th Century Europe which compliments my interest in Films during this era.
June 8, 2023
While reading this book, I kept checking the title to make sure I hadn’t accidentally gotten something different. But no, the title claims this to be a book about the Great Famine in Europe in the 14th century. I say it claims that title because you had to read halfway through the book for the famine to even start. I can understand including a chapter about the world leading up to the famine, but half the book? I read significantly more about England’s Edward II than I read about the famine. It was well written, but could use a different title so it doesn’t trick more people into reading about a topic they weren’t planning on.
May 25, 2025
I appreciated the author’s break down of the warm period and the little ice age in scientific means. The 14th century was an awful time to live, for many reasons, this famine included. A LOT of this book was focused on the war between Scotland and England, which certainly made the famine much worse than it could have been. However, I wish more time had been spent talking about the long term impacts on people less prominent than the king of England and would be king of Scotland. He touches on the concurrence with opportunistic diseases that killed many people who died during this time, but I think going into more detail would have been helpful.
May 5, 2018
1.5 stars
I skimmed the last 60 pages or so, so I'm not sure if I can technically say I "finished" this book. It was not what I expected at all, and dealt much more with war than climate. I did find it interesting how the book gave a sort of portrait of peasant life. I really like medieval history, but I found myself incredibly bored and confused by all the people and places and battles.
I skimmed the last 60 pages or so, so I'm not sure if I can technically say I "finished" this book. It was not what I expected at all, and dealt much more with war than climate. I did find it interesting how the book gave a sort of portrait of peasant life. I really like medieval history, but I found myself incredibly bored and confused by all the people and places and battles.
August 14, 2019
Forgotten in the shadow of the Black Plague's medieval eruption, the Great Famine of the early 14th century is here used as a frame for retelling the always-engrossing exploits of Robert Bruce and the Edwards' Scottish Wars. Or maybe Bruce and the Edwards are used to frame an interesting account of the Great Famine. Doesn't really matter, except that the reader should be prepared for a book that's not quite a tour of some of the bloodiest episodes of medieval politics, and not quite a thorough examination of climate, agriculture and food shortage at the end of the Medieval Warm Period. It's enough of both to read well but could have used a stronger sense of focus, and an authorial commitment to one or the other.
May 13, 2014
I received this book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.
William Rosen paints a compelling, if depressing, picture of life in early 14th century Europe, focusing specifically on the Great Famine of 1315-22 — seven years of almost unimaginably bad luck featuring torrential rains, frigid winters and decimating disease.
What makes Rosen's book unique is his marriage of cogent historical narrative — he's quite a good popular historian — with trenchant scientific analysis. The former is better than the latter; at times he struggles to dumb down the scientific jargon enough, though generally does so well enough. Even so, his explanation of the 400-year Medieval Warm Period, the practices it spawned, and the way those practices joined with the changing climate to bring crushing famine onto the population of Northern Europe is impressive.
I really enjoyed this book. Rosen has a knack for a good morbid historical narrative, and he tells it well. He also avoids sensationalizing (at least not too much: I've never seen a medieval historian able to avoid a few direct quotes about the horrific methods of execution employed at the time) while at the same time giving a sense of the scope of the tragedy that afflicted thousands upon thousands of people.
If there's any shortcoming to the book, it's that the link to climate change could use additional buttressing. Certainly, the climate was changing, as evidenced by the extreme weather, but Rosen seems in a hurry to get to the "good stuff" and fails to really take the time to delve more into the science of it. He discusses wind and ocean currents, high- and low-pressure systems, and the shift from the Medieval Warm Period into the Little Ice Age, but he doesn't analyze it as much as he does, say, the effects of the Scottish struggle for independence.
In all, however, this is a terrific read, a fascinating story told very well, with obvious and sobering parallels for our present-day struggles with climate, food and war. Highly recommended for any and all history buffs!
William Rosen paints a compelling, if depressing, picture of life in early 14th century Europe, focusing specifically on the Great Famine of 1315-22 — seven years of almost unimaginably bad luck featuring torrential rains, frigid winters and decimating disease.
What makes Rosen's book unique is his marriage of cogent historical narrative — he's quite a good popular historian — with trenchant scientific analysis. The former is better than the latter; at times he struggles to dumb down the scientific jargon enough, though generally does so well enough. Even so, his explanation of the 400-year Medieval Warm Period, the practices it spawned, and the way those practices joined with the changing climate to bring crushing famine onto the population of Northern Europe is impressive.
I really enjoyed this book. Rosen has a knack for a good morbid historical narrative, and he tells it well. He also avoids sensationalizing (at least not too much: I've never seen a medieval historian able to avoid a few direct quotes about the horrific methods of execution employed at the time) while at the same time giving a sense of the scope of the tragedy that afflicted thousands upon thousands of people.
If there's any shortcoming to the book, it's that the link to climate change could use additional buttressing. Certainly, the climate was changing, as evidenced by the extreme weather, but Rosen seems in a hurry to get to the "good stuff" and fails to really take the time to delve more into the science of it. He discusses wind and ocean currents, high- and low-pressure systems, and the shift from the Medieval Warm Period into the Little Ice Age, but he doesn't analyze it as much as he does, say, the effects of the Scottish struggle for independence.
In all, however, this is a terrific read, a fascinating story told very well, with obvious and sobering parallels for our present-day struggles with climate, food and war. Highly recommended for any and all history buffs!
January 1, 2024
The Third Horseman is an account of the early fourteenth century in Northwestern Europe, primarily focusing on England, Scotland and France. It's an incredibly diverse book, covering everything from the medieval economic system over the wars for Scottish independence to the impacts of the Great Famine. But in this diversity lies the book's downfall, in my opinion. Others have noted that the title of the book, The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century, is a complete misnomer compared to the actual contents of the book, which focus a lot more on detailing the strategies in individual battles and the politics of Anglo-Scottish relations than it does on either climate change or famine. But I believe that the problems with this book are deeper than a simple mismatch between the title and the contents. The book is, quite simply, disorganised. As a consequense, it becomes extremely difficult to get engaged in. It's a little about this, a little about that, and it jumps between topics with little guidance and only the very flimsiest of attempts at tying the disparate threads together. The book seems to want to be about how the natural disaster of famine, ultimately caused by climate change, was exacerbated and made infinitely more destructive by war, but it simply includes far too much other stuff and far too many details about aspects which are inconsequential to that narrative to create anything coherent. Ultimately, the book collapses under the weight of the sheer amount of vaguely organised information which the author wished to discuss. Sadly, my 2023 in books did not end on a high note.
April 12, 2014
I received this book at no cost as part of the Goodreads FirstReads program.
First, this was an ARC (Advance Reader Copy), so I expected numerous typos and other errors. I was pleasantly surprised that there were so few. There were occasional sequencing errors and name confusions, which will hopefully be addressed before publication.
Second, I applied for the book because I like history and am interested in climate change, but I expected a dry read. What a joy, then, to read a book told in an informal, rather humorous style, laced with a mildly sardonic tone and presented with great wit. Naturally, there are relevant scientific and mathematic concepts involved in the topic of famine caused by climate change, but these issues were explained clearly and concisely. Because the 14th century is overshadowed by the Black Death, I wasn't really aware of the famine that occured earlier in the century.
I believe the author makes a valid case for the causes of the famine, as well as its consequences: a gradual change from a feudalistic society to the first stirrings of nationalism.
The majority of the book centers on England, Edward II, and the issues involved with his reign. I would have liked to learn more about other areas in Europe, but I understand that the scope had to be somewhat limited in order not to lose focus.
It was definitely an enjoyable and interesting read.
First, this was an ARC (Advance Reader Copy), so I expected numerous typos and other errors. I was pleasantly surprised that there were so few. There were occasional sequencing errors and name confusions, which will hopefully be addressed before publication.
Second, I applied for the book because I like history and am interested in climate change, but I expected a dry read. What a joy, then, to read a book told in an informal, rather humorous style, laced with a mildly sardonic tone and presented with great wit. Naturally, there are relevant scientific and mathematic concepts involved in the topic of famine caused by climate change, but these issues were explained clearly and concisely. Because the 14th century is overshadowed by the Black Death, I wasn't really aware of the famine that occured earlier in the century.
I believe the author makes a valid case for the causes of the famine, as well as its consequences: a gradual change from a feudalistic society to the first stirrings of nationalism.
The majority of the book centers on England, Edward II, and the issues involved with his reign. I would have liked to learn more about other areas in Europe, but I understand that the scope had to be somewhat limited in order not to lose focus.
It was definitely an enjoyable and interesting read.
August 12, 2016
I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for a while as I have done quite a bit of reading about the time period and know some of the history. I was mostly excited about examining the role of climate change during this time, but found it was only a small part of the extensive history covered in this book. It also covers Vikings, Scottish rebellion, and other wars that contribute to the reason the countries were not well prepared for the drought and resulting famine. The book is well researched but very dense and I lost interest at times. Overall a well written history of the time but one that could have been pared down. I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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