Sam White is Associate Professor in the Department of History at The Ohio State University.
“In his deeply researched and exciting new book, A Cold Welcome,
the historian Sam White focuses on the true stories of the English,
Spanish, and French colonial expeditions in North America. He tells
strange and surprising tales of drought, famine, bitterly cold
winters, desperation, and death, while anchoring his research in
the methods and results of the science of climate change and
historical climatology…He weaves an intricate, complex tapestry as
he examines the effects both of climate—meteorological conditions
over relatively long periods of time—and of weather—the conditions
of the atmosphere over a short term—on vulnerable colonists in
North America in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries…His fresh account of the climatic forces shaping the
colonization of North America differs significantly from
long-standing interpretations of those early calamities.”—Susan
Dunn, New York Review of Books
“Meticulous environmental-historical detective work… White’s aim is
to show how the patterns of European colonization in North America
in the century before 1620 were driven by the engagement between
settlers and the climatic and environmental conditions they
encountered… A Cold Welcome is a pioneering and precise
environmental history of the European settlement of North
America.”—Robert J. Mayhew, Times Literary Supplement
“Sam White’s aptly named A Cold Welcome is a remarkable journey
through the complex impacts of the Little Ice Age on Colonial North
America. His compelling narrative takes the study of early America
in a new, and potentially highly important, direction that delves
into a now vanished world of daunting climatic extremes. This
beautifully written, important book leaves us in no doubt that we
ignore the chronicle of past climate change at our peril. I found
it hard to put down.”—Brian Fagan, author of The Little Ice Age
“A Cold Welcome deserves a warm reception from anyone interested in
colonial America, the early modern Atlantic, or the history of
changing climates. Taking a holistic view of North America, White
brilliantly illuminates the history of early Spanish, French, and
English settlements as they struggled to come to grips with
unexpected climates and a challenging spell during the Little Ice
Age.”—J. R. McNeill, coauthor of The Great Acceleration
“The period from 1492 to 1620 is the ‘forgotten century’ in
American history, with most textbooks offering only a passing
mention to early European exploration and settlement in North
America. In fact, there were dozens of attempts to penetrate the
continent, but all ended in starvation, disease, violence, and
death. In A Cold Welcome, White explains how the Little Ice Age
contributed to these failures. By combining archival research with
the latest findings of climate scientists, he makes a brilliant
contribution to both American and environmental history.”—Daniel
Headrick, author of Power over Peoples
“In the barbarous early years of European colonization of North
America, there have long been three acknowledged Horsemen of the
Apocalypse: poor planning, cultural incomprehension, and bad
timing. Sam White reminds us of a fourth deadly rider: climate
change. His analysis of the Little Ice Age in North America makes
the crucial point that failure to understand and adapt to climate
change has been fatal.”—Joyce E. Chaplin, author of Round About the
Earth
“White presents a fascinating account of Europeans’ 16th and early
17th century incursions into North America to highlight that
colonial exploration was impeded by famines, diseases, afflictions
and deaths for the British, the French, and the Spanish as they
faced storms, icy winters, hurricanes, droughts, and extreme cold
spells…In making climate history and climate reconstruction part of
a contextualized historical inquiry, White not only stresses what
was, but also implies what could have been for the early European
expansion into Northern America…Beautifully written and skillfully
researched, this book is highly relevant for scholars interested in
the ways in which colonial history has been shaped at the
intersection of human societies and the natural world, and more
widely for all who seek to understand the consequences of
present-day climate change on contemporary and future human
communities…White’s book constitutes a reminder of the deleterious
effects of uncontrolled climatic variations throughout social
history, and yet another warning.”—Hélène B. Ducros, EuropeNow
“An environmental historian by trade, [White] has produced a highly
readable study of how people struggled to exist and gain a foothold
in unfamiliar lands.”—Brian Renvall, Library Journal
“Today, as we confront an uncertain future from global warming, A
Cold Welcome reminds us of the risks of a changing and unfamiliar
climate.”—Northeastern Naturalist
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