Clouds: Nature and Culture

by Richard Hamblyn

Clouds have been objects of delight and fascination throughout human history, their fleeting magnificence and endless variety having inspired scientists and daydreamers alike. Described by Aristophanes as “the patron goddesses of idle men,” clouds and the ever-changing patterns they create have long symbolized the restlessness and unpredictability of nature, and yet they are also the source of life-giving rains. In this book, Richard Hamblyn examines clouds in their cultural, historic, and scientific contexts, exploring their prevalence in our skies as well as in our literature, art, and music.
           
As Hamblyn shows, clouds function not only as a crucial means of circulating water around the globe but also as a finely tuned thermostat regulating the planet’s temperature. He discusses the many different kinds of clouds, from high, scattered cirrus clouds to the plump thought-bubbles of cumulus clouds, even exploring man-made clouds and clouds on other planets. He also shows how clouds have featured as meaningful symbols in human culture, whether as ominous portents of coming calamities or as ethereal figures giving shape to the heavens, whether in Wordsworth’s poetry or today’s tech speak. Comprehensive yet compact, cogent and beautifully illustrated, this is the ultimate guidebook to those shapeshifters of the sky.

Genres: Nature, Art, Science, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

Published July 15, 2017

About the author

Richard Hamblyn studied at the universities of Essex and Cambridge, where he wrote a doctoral dissertation on 18th-century topographical writing. His first book, The Invention of Clouds (2001) told the story of Luke Howard, the amateur meteorologist who named the clouds in 1802; his other publications include The Cloud Book (2008) and Extraordinary Clouds (2009), both published in association with the (UK) Met Office; Data Soliloquies (2009), co-written with the digital artist Martin John Callanan; and Terra: Tales of the Earth, a collection of stories about major natural disasters. His anthology, The Art of Science: A Natural History of Ideas, was published by Picador in October 2011. It is a wide-ranging collection of readable science writing from the Babylonians to the Higgs boson.

Reviews

[John Kaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly perverse to be reading and finishing this book, in the middle of the longest period of cloudless skies in South Cumbria for probably many decades! Heard Richard Hamblyn talk about this book at Words by the Water earlier this year. The book feels a bit of a ramble, unlike his famous The Invention of Clouds, and I found it a little hard going at times. Some good pictures and illustrations in general, but I still found myself going to other of my cloud books for better reference pictures.

[Bogdan Antonescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, informative, and inspiring book on clouds containing a "natural history of clouds", a chapter on the "language and literature of clouds", and sections on clouds in myth, metaphor, art, photography, and music.

[Kerfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I could not get into the technical details and history of cloud classification, there's lots of other information--myth, art, nature--to entertain. And the photos are wonderful.