Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests: The Effects Climate Change and Other Natural Phenomena have had on the lives of our Ancestors – 40% Off

In 2018, Wayne Shepheard wrote a new book on how climate change has influenced our ancestor’s lives. It was published in Australia. His examples found in the volume are from the British Isles. FRPC is now printing the volume in a perfect-bound edition, and distributed it in the United States. The 182 page volume sells for just $29.95. However, it’s on sale this week for 40% Off – making it just $17.97. The sale runs Nov. 8-14, 2021. Purchase another book or two, making a minimum purchase of $25 and get free USA shipping.

Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests: The Effects Climate Change and Other Natural Phenomena have had on the lives of our Ancestors; by W. Wayne Shepheard; 2018; 182 pp; 8.5×11; maps, tables, index; ISBN: 9781925781465; Item #: UTPM004

‘Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests’ directly relates many of the situations observed in nature to the lives of families who experienced or endured them, primarily over the past several centuries. Family historians will appreciate that natural events had wide-ranging effects on generations of people – especially in consideration of how people sought to obtain the basic necessities of food, shelter and employment – as well as influencing changes to political, economic and societal situations.

Information presented here will also be of interest to those who want an introduction to the causes and effects of climate change and its impact on the environment and human habitats of the past.

The book summarizes different natural phenomena, the time periods in which they occurred and explanations of how people survived the particular tests imposed on them by Mother Nature. Among these are:

• Climate change – what controls global changes
• Epochal changes – how gradual altering of physical environments and human habitats occurring over generations affected living conditions and societal history
• The Holocene epoch – brief summaries of human and natural history of the last 10,000 years illustrating the frequency of alternating warm and cold periods and the commonality of the effects on societies
• The Last Millennium – natural conditions during the last 1,000 years with an emphasis on the effects on people, communities and social systems
• Slow-Developing Events – how such events as drought and famine, erosion of coastal margins, infilling of estuaries, shifts in river courses and volcanic activity affected living conditions and economies
• Rapidly-Materializing Incidents – impacts on people and communities from disease, earthquakes, floods and storms

Table of Contents

• Illustrations
• • Introduction

• • The Parameters of Climate Change

• • • Determining Whether Climate has Changed

• • • Controls on Climate

• • • Pre-Holocene Warm and Cold Periods

• • Epochal Changes: The Holocene

• • • Warm and Cold Periods of the Holocene

• • • The Rise and Fall of Civilizations

• • • Summary

• • The Last Millennium

• • • Medieval Warm Period

• • • Little Ice Age

• • • Changed Farming Methods

• • • Enclosure

• • • Land Abandonment

• • • The Age of Enlightenment

• • • The Industrial Revolution

• • • Modern Warm Period

• • • Summary

• • Slow-Developing Events

• • • Rivers and Estuaries

• • • • River Bolin, Cheshire

• • • • River Trent, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire

• • • • Humber Estuary, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire

• • • Shoreline Processes

• • • • Culbin Foreland and Findhorn Estuary, Morayshire, Nairnshire

• • • • Firvie, Aberdeenshire

• • • • Holderness, East Yorkshire

• • • • The Broads, Norfolk, Suffolk

• • • • Dunwich, Suffolk

• • • • Romney Marsh, Dungeness Foreland, Kent, Sussex

• • • • Hallsands, Devon

• • • • Kenfig, Bridgend

• • • • Morfa Harlech, Gwynedd

• • • Drought

• • • • 1540 Drought in Europe

• • • • 1887-1910 The Long Drought

• • • Famine

• • • • 1315-1317 Great Famine

• • • • 1623 Uplands Famine

• • • • 1740-1741 Irish Famine ‘Year of the Slaughter’

• • • • 1845-1852 Irish Potato Famine

• • • Volcanic Eruptions

• • • • 1258 Indonesia

• • • • 1783 Laki

• • • • 1815 Tambora

• • • • 1883 Krakatau

• • • Summary

• • Rapidly-Developing Events

• • • Major Storms

• • • • 1287 South England Storms: Kent, Norfolk and Sussex

• • • • 1638 Lightning Strike: Widecombe, Devon

• • • • 1694 Culbin Sands Disaster: Morayshire and Nairnshire
      • 1703 The Great Storm: Southern England
      • 1824 The Great Gale: Cornwall to Sussex
      • 1839 Night of the Big Wind
      • 1848 Moray Firth
      • 1881 Eyemouth Disaster
    • Floods

• • • • 1607 Bristol, Channel Flood

• • • • 1771 Tyne, Tees, Wear and Eden Rivers Flood

• • • • 1852 Oxford (Duke of Wellington) Flood

• • • • 1866 Pennine Flood

• • • • 1920 Louth Flood

• • • • 1953 North Sea Flood

• • • Earthquakes and Landslides

• • • • 1771 Solway Moss Irruption

• • • • 1839 Bindon, Dorset

• • • • 1884 Colchester Earthquake

• • • Diseases and Epidemics

• • • • 1347-1351 Black Death

• • • • 1665-1666 Great Plague

• • • • 1831-1866 Cholera Epidemics

• • • • 1918 Influenza Pandemic

• • • Fire

• • • Summary

• • Genealogical Information

• • • Information from Parish Registers

• • • Other Information Available in Historical Records

• • • Summary

• • Summary and Conclusions

• • References

• Index

Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests: The Effects Climate Change and Other Natural Phenomena have had on the lives of our Ancestors; by W. Wayne Shepheard; 2018; 182 pp; 8.5×11; maps, tables, index; ISBN: 9781925781465; Item #: UTPM004