Unknown Title

Title:

A cold welcome : the Little Ice Age and Europe's encounter with North America / Sam White.

Author:

White, Sam, 1980- author.

ISBN:

9780674971929

Personal Author:

White, Sam, 1980- author.

Physical Description:

xii, 361 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Content Type:

text

Media Type (RDA):

unmediated

Carrier Type:

volume

Contents:

Where everything must be burning -- Such great snows we thought we were dead men -- The land itself would wage war -- Bitter remedies -- We had changed summer with winter -- Destroyed with cruel disease -- Our former hopes were frozen to death -- Winter for eight months and hell for four -- Death follows us everywhere -- Such wonders of afflictions.

Abstract:

When Europeans first arrived in North America, they found an often harsh and unfamiliar land in the grip of the coldest age for millennia: the "Little Ice Age." Spanish, French, and English alike faced a century of disasters, setbacks, and failures on the way to their first enduring footholds on the continent. All the while, the vagaries and extremes of North America's Little Ice Age climate posed new threats and challenges, shaping the course of colonial history. A Cold Welcome tells the fascinating and often forgotten tale of Europe's first encounters with a new continent, and the first settlements of the US and Canada. Drawing on wide-ranging interdisciplinary research in many languages, Sam White brings together the parallel histories of the Spanish, French, and English in North America, and the Native Americans they encountered, from the earliest expeditions to the perilous first winters at Jamestown, Quebec, and Santa Fe. A Cold Welcome weaves together evidence from climatology, archaeology, and human history to tell a new story of America's colonial beginnings--one both novel and yet relevant and familiar for a world now facing an uncertain future of environmental and climatic change.-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

Europeans -- North America -- History.

Indians of North America -- First contact with other peoples

Human beings -- Effect of climate on -- North America.

Archaeology and history -- North America.

Geographic Term:

North America -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.

North America -- Discovery and exploration.

Format:

Books

Available:*

Library	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... North Tonawanda Public Library	34120006465757	970.01 WHIT	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

When Europeans first arrived in North America, they faced a cold new world. The average global temperature had dropped to lows unseen in millennia, and its effects were stark and unpredictable: blizzards and deep freezes, droughts and famines, and winters when even the Rio Grande froze. This period of climate change has come to be known as the Little Ice Age, and it played a decisive role in Europe's encounter with the lands and peoples of North America. In A Cold Welcome , Sam White tells the story of this crucial period in world history, from Europe's earliest expeditions in an unfamiliar landscape to the perilous first winters at Santa Fe, Quebec, and Jamestown.

Weaving together evidence from climatology, archaeology, and the written historical record, White describes how the severity and volatility of the Little Ice Age climate threatened to freeze and starve out the Europeans' precarious new settlements. Lacking basic provisions and wholly unprepared to fend for themselves under such harsh conditions, Europeans suffered life-threatening privation, and their desperation precipitated violent conflict with Native Americans.

In the twenty-first century, as we confront an uncertain future from global warming, A Cold Welcome reminds us of the risks of a changing and unfamiliar climate.

Reviews (1)

Library Journal Review

In a work spanning history and science, White (The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire) closely examines how Spanish, French, and English explorers and settlers dealt with extreme climates in the lands they sought to inhabit. An environmental historian by trade, the author has produced a highly readable study of how people struggled to exist and gain a foothold in unfamiliar lands. Between approximately the middle of the 14th century to the early 19th century, the Little Ice Age witnessed a noticeable cooling trend, which was particularly felt by those in the American continent. Compared to Europe, the winters in Jamestown, VA, and Santa Fe, NM, were harsh and unexpected. White describes how people endeavored to find a way to survive in their surroundings. In Quebec, for example, French settlers welcomed the advice of First Nations people who taught them remedies that were used in combatting the ill effects of scurvy. VERDICT Overall, White does a commendable job of relating how the colonists' tenuous first years in the Americas were perilously close to failure. Ultimately, their survival may provide lessons for us today as we deal with conspicuous climate change.-Brian Renvall, Mesalands Community Coll., Tucumcari, NM © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

List of Maps	p. ix
Author's Note	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
1 Where Everything Must Be Burning	p. 9
2 Such Great Snows We Thought We Were Dead Men	p. 28
3 The Land Itself Would Wage War	p. 50
4 Bitter Remedies	p. 70
5 We Had Changed Summer with Winter	p. 88
6 Destroyed with Cruel Disease	p. 109
7 Our Former Hopes Were Frozen to Death	p. 132
8 Winter for Eight Months and Hell for Four	p. 154
9 Death Follows Us Everywhere	p. 186
10 Such Wonders of Afflictions	p. 229
Conclusion	p. 250
Notes	p. 259
Acknowledgments	p. 351
Index	p. 353

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