Author │  Global Warming Historian │  Anthropologist

Brian Fagan is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Born in England, he did fieldwork in Africa and has written about early man, forensic archaeology, and many other topics.  His books on the interaction of climate and human society have established him as a leading authority on the subject, and he lectures frequently around the world. He is the editor of The Oxford Companion to Archaeology and the author of 46 books including The Long Summer, The Little Ice Age, and The Great Warming.

In The Great Warming, Fagan reveals how subtle changes in the environment have far-reaching effects on human life. His compelling and eminently readable narrative sweeps from the Arctic ice cap to the Sahara to the Indian Ocean. The history of the Great Warming that happened a half millennium ago suggests that we may be underestimating the power of climate change to disrupt our lives today.  Our vulnerability to drought, writes Fagan, is the “silent elephant in the room.”

Professor Fagan believes that “the problems associated with global warming will require political and social thinking of a kind that barely exists today” and that it is essential to persuade our political and business leaders to begin the long-term planning required to address this immanent environmental catastrophe.

For 36 years, Mr. Fagan was Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  He received his BA, MA, and PhD in archaeology and anthropology from Cambridge University in England.

Selected Books

• Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age gave birth to the First Modern Humans (Bloomsbury Press, 2010)
• The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations (Bloomsbury Press, 2009)
• The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization (Basic Books, 2004)
• The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850 (Basic Books, 2001)
  

For more information about Brian Fagan visit www.brianfagan.com or visit his blog, FaganTalk.