Reviews
The Year Without Summer: “Eighteen hundred and froze to death”
Historian William K. Klingaman and meteorologist Nicholas P. Klingaman combine forces in The Year Without Summer: 1816 And The Volcano That Darkened The World And Changed History. Working in a vein similar to Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map, the Klingamans weave together modern scientific explanations, nineteenth-century scientific (and religious) speculations, and historical events into a…
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The Birth of the West
Several weeks ago I mentioned a Big Fat History Book that had me gasping at my own ignorance. I left you dangling, but now that the review has appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers, I can share the details with you. The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in…
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The Making of the First World War: A Pivotal History
Despite its title, The Making of the First World War: A Pivotal History by historian Ian F. W. Beckett is not another account of the events leading up to World War One. Instead Beckett is concerned with what he describes as “pivot points”: decisive moments that affected not only the course of the war…
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