Ice Ages
Their Social and Natural History
- Author: Allan Mazur, Syracuse University, New York
- Date Published: February 2022
- availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
- format: Adobe eBook Reader
- isbn: 9781009021265
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What causes Ice Ages? How did we learn about them? What were their affects on the social history of humanity? Allan Mazur's book tells the appealing history of the scientific 'discovery' of Ice Ages. How we learned that much of the Earth was repeatedly covered by huge ice sheets, why that occurred, and how the waning of the last Ice Age paved the way for agrarian civilization and, ultimately, our present social structures. The book discusses implications for the current 'controversies' over anthropogenic climate change, public understanding of science, and (lack of) 'trust in experts'. In parallel to the history and science of Ice Ages, sociologist Mazur highlights why this is especially relevant right now for humanity. Ice Ages: Their Social and Natural History is an engrossing combination of natural science and social history: glaciology and sociology writ large.
Read more- Accessible and engagingly written natural history of Ice Ages, covering history of science and social effects on humanity
- Explains the importance of the end of the last great glaciation for the development of agrarian civilization: a topic rarely explored by writers in either the physical or social sciences
- Introduces social scientists to the physical world of Ice Ages, and natural scientists to the implications of major climate change to human society
- The long history of climate and society is germane to present concerns about our warming climate
Reviews & endorsements
'Allan Mazur takes us on a fascinating journey through two million years of Earth history and human history, linking the two through a lucid description of the great Ice Age fluctuations in climate. This is a book for all readers interested in our shared human career, and in how the dynamic surface of the Earth has influenced that career through the ages.' Peter Bellwood, Australian National University
See more reviews'Allan Mazur gives us a masterful exemplar of the history of science. He shows specialists from several disciplines and nonspecialists with just a modicum of science how diverse paths of inquiry over recent human history have revealed the details of prehistory going far back into geological time. He shows us how more detail is known than might have been imagined when the scientific work began in the 18th century. Not since Simon Winchester's Krakatoa has the science of geology been so absorbing! More importantly, Mazur shows both how ice ages – large and small, long and short – and their endings have changed human history, and how our short-sightedness about their causes and effects is going to change future human history, for the worse … unless the right people learn the lessons of this book.' Alex Rosenberg, Duke University
'Living on a warming planet, we struggle to imagine that it was periodically covered by vast sheets of ice. Allan Mazur, a master of calm, companionable, and often humorous prose, guides us through the various efforts humans - plucky survivors of the Pleistocene - have made to understand the Earth as well as their transformative and, it now turns out, damaging presence on it. An impressive synthetic effort, blending science and cultural history, Mazur's excellent Ice Ages gives us the tools necessary to participate knowledgeably in debates about climate disruption.''… this captivating and accessible read provides substantial detail about Earth's recent geologic past and its inhabitants, past and present. … Highly recommended.' Christoph Irmscher, Indiana University; author of Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science
'This absolutely fascinating book weaves together the complicated strands of human endeavor that led to the great scientific discovery of ice ages on Earth. It should be read by everyone interested in the current pressing problem of global climate change, both natural and human induced.' George Denton, University of Maine
'… this captivating and accessible read provides substantial detail about Earth's recent geologic past and its inhabitants, past and present … Highly recommended.' C. A. McRoberts, Choice
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×Product details
- Date Published: February 2022
- format: Adobe eBook Reader
- isbn: 9781009021265
- availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
1. In the Beginning
2. 'Bursting the Limits of Time'
3. Darwin's Revolution
4. Discovering an Age of Ice
5. Why Does Climate Change? Orbits
6. Dating Ice Age Climates
7. Why Does Climate Change? Carbon Dioxide
8. Why Does Climate Change? Continental Drift and Ocean Currents
9. Ecce Homo
10. How Did Extinct Hominins Behave?
11. Life in the Paleolithic
12. Extinction of Ice Age Mammals in Near Time
13. The Agrarian Transformation
14. Rise of Civilizations
References
Index.
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