This is really a 3 1/2 star book; the topic is fascinating and the author’s research intensive, even if at times it feels more like a compendium of facts than a *history* of the Little Ice Age that shaped medieval and early modern Europe. Fagan’s command of the facts is almost the problem with his periodization, because he wants to share every warm winter that seems to blunt his ice age thesis. Overall, however, the book is rich with examples of the social effects of climate change: how extended cold ruined the British wine industry; the effects of winter storms on the Spanish Armada; how North Sea storms walked sand across England, ruining hundreds of acres of agricultural land; how sub-par grain crops helped stimulate bread riots and the French Revolution; the 1816 volcanic eruptions that affected life worldwide; and (of course) the Irish dependence on the potato crop and subsequent blight, famine, and mass migration. Fagan concludes with an admonition about global warming: “The Little Ice Age reminds us that climate change is inevitable, unpredictable, and sometimes vicious” (214).