Blom does the sensible thing and dodges a final verdict on what caused all those vicious winters ... This is a sweeping story, embracing developments in economics and science, philosophy and exploration, religion and politics. Blom delivers much of his argument through compressed, beautifully clear life sketches of prominent men ... In the course of Nature’s Mutiny... we travel a considerable distance from the subject of unusually cold weather. Too far, a reader might think, for Blom’s argument to be regarded as a case conclusively settled. But it wouldn’t be fair to Nature’s Mutiny to see the issue of proof so starkly. It is a book about a new economic system and the philosophical and cultural trends that accompanied it; climate is central to the story that it tells, but the connections don’t aim for the solidity of algebraic logic. Rather, Blom is seeking to give us a larger picture that is relevant to the current moment. His book is about links and associations rather than about definitive proof; it is about networks and shifts in intellectual mood, about correlations as much as causes. Despite that, Blom’s hypothesis is forceful, and has the potential to be both frightening and, if you hold it up to the light at just the right angle, a little optimistic. The idea can be put like this: climate change changes everything.

The premise of treating historical sources as a way of answering current questions is so good that Blom should have stuck to it. He is tempted, however, into making everything new in the 17th century a result of climate change, and this can only be true by so diluting the notion of causation as to render his claim meaningless — or just plain vulnerable ... The book is marred by errors of fact ... It too often reads like a series of potted histories. But the main thrust is well worth pondering...

In the dense but rewarding Nature’s Mutiny, Philipp Blom exhaustively combs through the annals of another period of extreme weather to show us what our future might resemble and how climate change affects everyone ... Relying on original research materials such as diaries, sermons, logs, wine harvest records and paintings, Blom focuses on an agricultural crisis that, he writes, 'served as a catalyst for change everywhere, facilitating some ideas and practices — social, cultural and political — while making others more difficult or even, in the long run, impossible.'

Intriguing ... Drawing on in-depth, well-rounded research and a chronologically and thematically structured narrative, the book leads the reader through those drastic shifts, covering many aspects of life though never definitively determining whether the climate change of the era caused most of its social and cultural alterations or if these upheavals were caused by many factors, including the deep freeze. Blom attempts to provide correlations between this climate crisis and our own escalating struggle with its opposite, global warming, but his analogies fall flat. There is also a lack of introduction to the post-medieval period in which the Little Ice Age began. Still, this is a well-written, informative, and fresh look at a relevant and instructive climate disruption and will appeal to readers interested in European and environmental history as well as our own climate challenges.

Not a history. It finds a correlation between climate change and social change, but it does not document causality. It is worth reading because it ventures into a territory many more writers and thinkers will have to grapple with: a world in which the physical workings of nature are profoundly intertwined with human destiny.

Some of [Blom's] presentation is unexceptionable, but many parts of it go too far and try to explain too much ... Mr. Blom gives a serviceable account of [several] torments [in Europe around the time of the Little Ice Age]. But his book misfires when it traces the emerging economic and intellectual hegemony of Europe to the creative chaos of the Little Ice Age ... Presuming, rather than demonstrating, that environmental crisis encouraged intellectual innovation, Mr. Blom wanders into a series of baffling digressions. Extended discussions of the idiosyncratic English astronomer John Dee, or the French essayist Michel de Montaigne, have little bearing on the subject of the book. He plows ahead regardless, justifying his tangents by noting his subjects’ occasional comments on the weather. Nature’s Mutiny is full of such cul-de-sacs ... Though frustratingly digressive, [Blom's] style is generally pleasing, marred only by an occasional penchant for mixed metaphors.

Blom examines the Little Ice Age, the great climate crisis of the 16th century, and traces the powerful—and often expected changes—it had on Europe. This is not, by any means, a dry treatise ... Blom’s compelling examination of how societies and cities adapted to unexpected change in the past is both fascinating history and a timely title for our own time.

Drawing on rich sources, including diaries, letters, account ledgers, paintings, and religious sermons as well as data gleaned by climate historians and scientists, journalist and translator Blom creates a vivid picture of the European landscape during the Little Ice Age and of social, political, and cultural changes that may have been accelerated by climate change ... Blom’s epilogue addresses contemporary global warming, which, unlike the Little Ice Age, will not spontaneously rectify itself; caused by humans, it requires dramatic, clearsighted human intervention ... An absorbing and revealing portrait of profound natural disaster.

Weakly argued ... Blom’s arguments are intriguing but often tenuous, especially when he asserts a causative connection between the weather and particular ideas. While the arguments may not be airtight, this wide-ranging and affectionate portrait of 17th-century Europe has a poetic appeal.