The Complete Ice Age: How Climate Change Shaped the World

Tells you everything you need to know about the ice age and climate change.

I thought Ice Age was just an excellent book. I read it conjunction with Brian Fagan's The Long Summer and I preferred Ice Age. I felt that The Long Summer contained a great deal of gratuitous filler about how people might have hunted, might have farmed, might have lived, etc. I prefer my non fiction a bit less speculative, and Ice Age fit the bill perfectly in this regard. In particular, the chapters on the history, causes, and magnitude of climate change authored by Mark Maslin were models of clarity and conciseness. Admittedly Ice Age is an overview aimed at a lay audience and probably wouldn't satisfy the needs of academics, but for me it merits five stars.

interesting book

The Complete Ice Age: How Climate Change Shaped the World is an anthology of articles on the latest theories of how the Ice Ages began, ran their course, and warmed into interglacials, such as our current one. Brian Fagan, the editor, has written a number of very accessible books that combines the detailed paleoclimate data scientists have brought out of the study of global warming, and expertly combines them with archaeological data to show climate's influence on what happened. Here, he draws in specialist colleagues to look at different aspects of how the last Ice Age took shape, ended, and affected the growth of humankind into our modern forms.The book concludes with a look at the potential effects of global warming, and how it fits into the natural cycle of Ice Ages and interglacials that have been the norm for several million years now. The book is thus a look back, using the latest and best knowledge we have, and the use of that knowledge to look forward, at a potential future. I would recommend it equally to those interested in archaeology and in global warming.The book is lavishly illustrated with color photographs and drawings that help the reader follow along with the discussions at hand. It is a great read.

A good summary of the various different aspects of the ice ages. Nicely illustrated, first class graphs diagrams photos etc. I find it hard to imagine that anyone would not enjoy this book.