The third horseman

In May 1315, it started to rain. It didn't stop anywhere in northern Europe until August. Next came the coldest winters in a millennium. Two separate animal epidemics killed nearly 80 percent of northern Europe's livestock. Wars between Scotland and England, France and Flanders, and two rival claimants to the rule of the Holy Roman Empire destroyed the remaining farmland. After seven years, the combination of lost harvests, warfare, and pestilence would claim six million lives - one eighth of Europe's total population. The Third Horsemantells the story of those seven years that saw one of the most astonishing catastrophes in Europe's history. It reveals the complex and interrelated forces, centuries gestating, that set the stage for the apocalyptic disaster that became known as the Great Famine. William Rosen draws connections between feudalism and agricultural economics; climatology and Viking exploration; chivalric warfare and village life, showing how a succession of impersonal traumas conspired to turn hunger into starvation. The Third Horsemanpaints rich portraits of the key actors of the period, characters such as Scotland's William Wallace, and Robert Bruce, facing off against a feckless Edward II of England whose failures serve as a colourful backdrop to changing demographics across Europe. By incorporating the most current scientific theories and economic models, Rosen demonstrates, too, the powerful implication for climate change today. A stunning story told with exceptional wit and drama by a writer whose breadth of knowledge of history and science defies category, The Third Horsemanis a reminder that history can be made by events that shift, ever so gradually, the delicate balance between life and death.