The Fate of Civilizations: Natural Catastrophes that Changed the World

We rarely have to think about the influence of climate on the course of history. What led to the birth of three great ancient civilizations - Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indo-Harappan? How did a slight global temperature drop of just half a degree make everyone talk about global warming, melting glaciers, and a worldwide flood? Few know that a sharp temperature jump, specifically a catastrophic cooling, was the cause of the Time of Troubles and the "unhappy reign" of Boris Godunov. According to contemporaries, on July 28, 1601, "great snow fell in Moscow in the middle of summer and there was frost, people were riding in sleighs." And what to say if the temperature in the past century was much lower than it is now, and Dostoevsky's characters wore coats in the summer. Our entire civilization is the product of a brief period of "thaw." Even 400 years before Ovid, grapes and olives did not ripen in Rome. One of the most complex scientific tasks is to trace the impact of climate on the history of humanity, and the author solves it in a remarkably 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 that humanity faces.