Climate, or What Rules the Fate of Civilizations

We rarely think about how climate influences the course of history. What led to the birth of three great ancient civilizations — Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indus-Harappan? How did a global average temperature drop of just half a degree make everyone talk about global warming, melting glaciers, and the great flood? And did you know that the Time of Troubles, and the unfortunate reign of Boris Godunov before it, was caused by a sharp climate shift — a catastrophic cooling? According to contemporary accounts, on July 28, 1601, snow fell in Moscow in the middle of summer, and it was frosty enough that people rode in sleds. And what can we say, if the temperature in the last century was much lower than it is now: Dostoevsky's characters wore coats in summer. In fact, all our civilization is a product of a brief thaw period. Four hundred years before Ovid, neither grapes nor olives ripened even in Rome. One of the most complex scientific tasks — tracing the impact of climate on human history — is handled by the author in an amazingly engaging way! This investigation is filled with facts, unconventional examples, and unexpected evidence, confirming that the climate kitchen is perhaps one of the most difficult-to-explain processes with which humanity is familiar.