Bookverdict.com

Wood's (English, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Romanticism and Music Culture in Britain, 1770–1840) compelling and at times terrifying "cautionary tale" details the global effects of the April 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. Widespread devastation lasted several years after cold temperatures enveloped much of the world in the wake of a cloud of ash that exploded into the atmosphere. Crop yields dropped by 75 percent in Western Europe during 1816 and 1817, for example; an 1816–1818 famine in Ireland was ignored, Wood says, by city dwellers and the government until it caused typhus to reach their environs. The monsoon was almost absent in India in 1816, causing droug...Log In or Sign Up to Read More