Sound Bite
Almost 200 years ago the Northeast endured a dramatic, devastating series of cold spells, destroying crops, forcing thousand to migrate west, and causing many to wonder if their assumptions about a world governed by a beneficial Providence were valid. The so-called "year without a summer" also exposed weaknesses in political and theological authorities, spurring a trend toward scientific inquiry and greater democracy. An endangered New England agriculture gave impetus to that region's manufacturing sector. The alarming threat to existence in that part of the country (as well as most of Western Europe) thus helped usher in the modern era. This book is written with the parallels between 1816 and our current "climate change" in mind: it introduces informed non-specialists to the myriad of social, psychological, political, demographic, and economic consequences which can be brought about by abrupt climate change.
About the Author
John V. H. Dippel has published two books with Algora, Race to the Frontier: White Flight and Westward Expansion (2005) and Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death — The Impact of America's First Climate Crisis (2015).
He is also author of Two Against Hitler, Bound Upon a Wheel of Fire, and War and Sex. In addition, his articles on political affairs have appeared in such publications as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The New Leader.
A graduate of Princeton University, John Dippel also holds advanced degrees from Trinity College, Dublin, and Columbia University. After having resided for many years in New York's historic Hudson Valley, he now lives in northwest Connecticut.
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About the Book
A major meteorological event profoundly affected our nation's development in 1816. This book shows how this weather phenomenon acted as an accelerator of trends which were just emerging in the early 19th-century: a trend toward greater democracy...
A major meteorological event profoundly affected our nation's development in 1816. This book shows how this weather phenomenon acted as an accelerator of trends which were just emerging in the early 19th-century: a trend toward greater democracy and the spread of information; settlement of the Western frontier; use of the scientific method to investigate and understand natural phenomena; questioning of long-held religious beliefs as a result of increased knowledge; and industrialization as the means to expand the scope and wealth of the United States.
Like all my books, America's First Climate Crisis is written in an accessible, engaging style, using anecdotes and thumbnail sketches to evoke the mood and important personalities of the day. While thoroughly researched, the book avoids the pitfalls of academic writing, and letters and diary entries add a warm tone to a very chilly narrative.
The book is organized around various consequences of the disastrous harvests of 1816: after outlining the nature and scope of this calamity, I describe how it brought about a massive exodus to the Ohio Valley and shift in political and economic might to that region; how it undermined the once-unquestioned authority of New England's Federalist establishment; how it gave greater credence to scientific explanations for weather events and disasters; how it compelled New England merchants to abandon their opposition to manufacturing; and how it helped create a modern awareness of humanity's place in the universe.
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Jim Hansen, leading climate scientist | More »
Jim Hansen, leading climate scientist
"Oddly, I once labeled a folder "Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death", with the notion of writing about the spectacular climate experiment that Nature provided with the massive Tambora climate eruption. Good that I gave up. Dippel has done a great job of chronicling that unique event and its political and social consequences. That one-year disruption may foreshadow growing perennial consequences of human-made climate chaos this century."
James Hansen, leading climate scientist and recently retired head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Gillen D\'Arcy Wood, author of: Tambora | More »
Gillen D\'Arcy Wood, author of: Tambora
"John Dippel's marvelous book stands as the most authoritative, detailed, and gripping account of the climate disaster that struck New England and the Atlantic seaboard in 1816-17. The product of years of research into period newspapers, letters, and journals, Dippel shows how meteorological upheaval produced seismic changes in the early history of the United States, including a massive demographic shift westward, the decimation of the Federalist Party in New England, and an historically momentous shift of capital investment from agriculture to manufacturing. But more than these macro effects, Dippel brings to life the Great National Trauma of the 1816 "year without a summer" through the voices of the ordinary folk who suffered through it. The cumulative impact of Dippel's voluminous research through the hinterlands of New England history is of a social crisis of epic scale that changed forever the way Americans viewed themselves, their rulers, and their nation's destiny. In a similar way does Dippel himself—by marrying social and climate history—rewrite the past in ways urgently relevant to our own century."′
Gillen D'Arcy Wood, author of 'Tambora: The Eruption that Changed the World and professor of English at the University of Illinois'
Brian Fagan, author of: The Little Ice Age, and The Attacking Ocean | More »
Brian Fagan, author of: The Little Ice Age, and The Attacking Ocean
John Dippel takes us on a fascinating journey through the infamous "Year without Summer" that descended upon North America in 1816. This is a book about faith and reason, about shifts in thinking that moved people away from beliefs in an unchanging world. Eighteen Hundred is an engrossing, thoroughly researched study that has much relevance to the climate change debates of today.
Brian Fagan, author of 'The Little Ice Age' and 'The Attacking Ocean'
Richard Buel, Jr., author of: America on the Brink | More »
Richard Buel, Jr., author of: America on the Brink
"John Dippel's exhaustive exploration of the impact the extreme weather of 1816 may have had on early nineteenth-century New England’s society and culture will be welcomed by readers seeking to find in the past a key to understanding the full implications of contemporary threats to our fragile ecosystems."
Richard Buel is author of 'America on the Brink' and professor emeritus of history at Wesleyan University
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Pages 224
Year: 2015
BISAC: HISTORY / United States / 19th Century
BISAC: SCIENCE / Global Warming, Climate Change
Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-1-62894-117-3
Price: USD 22.95
Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-1-62894-118-0
Price: USD 32.95
eBook
ISBN: 978-1-62894-119-7
Price: USD 22.95
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