**Goodreads Advance Reader copy**

I'll be honest, I probably get more excited about an historical examination of famine than the average reader. That said, it doesn't take a history nut to enjoy The Third Horseman. The easy conversational tone and cheeky footnotes keep the narrative flowing while the new perspective and information make for a fascinating story.

The Third Horseman addresses the Great Famine of the early 14th century, looking at the interaction of climate, economics, and political intrigue in the creation of devastating events, and their particular effects on the common man. The story is very much seated in England (and laterally in France), using the reign of Edward II and the struggles over Scottish independence as a lens to view the famine and its effects.

I was not prepared for the heavy focus on England. The story could as easily be told from a variety of regional perspectives, and I was interested to read more about the rest of the continent. However the author is well aware of this, and, facing the impracticality of including every story line, chose the one that worked for him. It works for the reader as well; and the benefit of focusing primarily on one area is the level of detail it allows him to provide.

There are inevitably many theories explaining any era of history; our accounts are always biased towards the records that survive. Rosen expands those accounts by drawing from a variety of disciplines and sources. I appreciated the anthropological approach; the premise that how we organize ourselves as humans (as animals) starts with how we get food from the land. He pieces together climate data from dendrochronology and arctic ice core samples; gauges food distribution using ethnobotany and modern humanitarian efforts, botanical knowledge of plant production and economic studies of pricing, trade, and production; all along with the classic sources of historical records and chronicles.

The most interesting facet of this book is the way the author uses this varied information to sketch out the life of the lower classes in England. While the majority of surviving records focus on the nobility and the ecclesiastics, these new sources (I'm reading a proof copy, but a great number of the non-contemporary references seem to be papers and writings from the last decade) allow him to postulate what life was like for a peasant, a farmer, a townsman, a soldier. This is especially important when we're talking famine; as he says, often these crises are not a total lack of food, but a shortage; and the poor starve first.

Ultimately, the book paints a clear picture from our own history of how an ecological disturbance can become a catastrophe when combined with an unequal economic structure and capricious decision-making on a political level; and how it is the working classes who bear the brunt of that damage. It's a lesson we can't afford to ignore in the present. ( )

Pros: lots of information, political components told like a story with digressions on economics, weather, etc.,

Cons: I personally found the weather talk - though essential to the subject of the book - dryly told and boringly technical

This is an examination of the effects of the end of the medieval warm period during the reign of King Edward II of England. The book gives some background into the population explosion and increased farming that took place during the 400 hundred years when Europe experienced warmer temperatures (including the Viking expansion into Greenland), before delving into the political trials England faced at the time. Much of the book is given over to the war between England and Scotland and how it affected politics (Scotland allied with France at times to force England to back off) and economics (Scotland raided the English border over and over again, forcing the king to raise armies, draining his coffers). Two chapters - of particular interest to me - detailed the effects of the wet, cold weather on crops and the diseases that accompanied the resulting famines, decimating herds across England and the Continent.

While I found some of the weather discourse too technical and therefore boring, the rest of the book was very readable and fascinating.

If you’re interested in how politics and the weather can combine to created a famine, and what else famine brings with it, this is a great book. Similarly, if the politics of England and Scotland or the lives and times of Edward the first and, predominantly the second, interest you, then definitely give this book a go. ( )

Change is difficult, in more ways than one

The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century by William Rosen (Viking Adult, $28.95).

While William Rosen’s delight in details may put off some readers, his recounting of the 1300s from the dynastic ambitions of English and Scots rulers to changes in climate patterns that allowed grape cultivation at higher altitudes in this detailed and heavily-footnoted interdisciplinary work offers an extremely good example of just how serious even small changes in climate can be when a large population is relying on stable crops for food.

It’s the “butterfly effect” writ large. When climate changes, agriculture changes. When agriculture changes, people get hungry. When people get hungry, governments and cultures become unstable. The next thing you know, there are mass migrations and political upheaval.

The “Great Famine” lasted for seven years during what’s known as the Medieval Warm Period. For the most part, the climate changes increased food production and allowed for population growth. Unfortunately, famine isn’t always about the presence of food; it’s more often about the price of food. When food becomes too expensive for people to buy, famine ensues, and, as Rosen points out, when societies rely too heavily on a limited number of crops, failures can result in catastrophes.

While Rosen is not particularly interested in making a prediction about the implications of his work for those of us paying attention to current climate change issues, his tale of how unusually wet weather led to a century of European war and unrest will certainly provide food for thought. His main thrust is that climate change of any kind—and the Medieval Warm Period was not caused by humans, nor was the Little Ice Age—will put pressures on societies that create all sorts of disturbance.

Reviewed at Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com ( )

Few books about Mr. Rosen's double topic -- climatology, and history -- are this entertaining and this compulsively readable. That it in itself is a good reason to read it. It is a brisk discussion of how a dramatic change in the weather in Northern Europe, early in the fourteenth century, unleashed starvation and sickness, compounding the impact of the endemic warfare of the time. The events known at the time as "The Great Famine" has got lost in shadow of the Black Death, which followed it by a generation. But the events were cataclysmic enough to bear comparison with almost any catastrophe except the plague itself.

In addition to a fascinating look at the past, this book highlights the risks we confront at present. The impact of a period of excessive rain and cold, compounded each year the unusual conditions persisted, affected almost everyone living in Northern Europe at the time. The impact of global warming has already begun to show, and it will persist year after year after year.

Why not "only" four stars for a history book that is enlightening about the past, indicative about the future, and a good read to boot? Mr. Rosen's focus on the wars between England and Scotland sometimes takes over more than its share of the book, since he doesn't show that these were specifically related to changing weather. His look at the struggle, however, is interesting, and his discussion of the woes of Edward II very funny in a macabre way. I very much enjoyed Mr. Rosen's "Justinian's Flea", and will look forward to more from him on the intersections between history and our environment. ( )

I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for a while as I have done quite a bit of reading about the time period and know some of the history. I was mostly excited about examining the role of climate change during this time, but found it was only a small part of the extensive history covered in this book. It also covers Vikings, Scottish rebellion, and other wars that contribute to the reason the countries were not well prepared for the drought and resulting famine. The book is well researched but very dense and I lost interest at times. Overall a well written history of the time but one that could have been pared down. I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )