Maunder Minimum and Parker Maximum

Abstract

����� ��� f several remarkable things about Global Crisis, the first to note is its heft. The events it describes were weighty, and so is the book. At 3.2 lbs (1.4kg) and 845 pages, it is hard to pick up. For many historians, it will also be hard to put down. Students are another matter. In an age when reading more than 140 characters at a time seems passe, few undergraduate students will agree to read a book of this length unless they regard it as the word of God. Parker writes with authority, but not quite that much. The book’s bulk means its audience will likely not extend much past the ranks of his fellow professional historians, despite his envoi that raises the alarm about today’s global warming. I hope I’m wrong here, because the book deserves readers. But even those readers who do complete the marathon, and appreciate the journey, will feel as Samuel Johnson did about Milton’s Paradise Lost: “None ever wished it longer than it is.” Parker wants readers to take seriously the proposition that the various economic and political crises of the 17th century were not isolated events but connected. The chief connection, he maintains, is that they all had a component of bad weather behind them. The Little Ice Age, which extended from about 1250 to about 1850, reached its nadir in the 17th century. That is explained partly by a spate of volcanic eruptions, the dust veils of which reduced the amount of sunshine reaching the Earth’s surface, and partly by a slump in the sun’s energy output called the Maunder Minimum. Colder weather, often dryer weather, and more frequent extreme weather became common in many if not all parts of the