Historical Perspectives on Climate Change

by JamesR.Fleming (Author)

• New

  Hardcover
  1998

  $241.73

  This book examines changing theories and perceptions of climatic change from the Enlightenment to the mid-twentieth century in both Europe and America. It explores the intellectual, social, and cultural meanings of climate and climate change through a fusion of history of science and cultural history.

• New

  Paperback
  2009

  $26.50

  This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of international networks of observation; the scientific transformation of climate discourse; and early contributions to understanding terrestrial temperature changes, infrared radiation, and the carbon dioxide theory of climate. But perhaps most important, this book shows what a study of the past has to offer the interdisciplinary investigation of current environmental problems.