Who knows how variable the climate is and how resilient the human cultural reaction to its changes  can understand the debate that is taking place in recent years on Global Warming.
Men are sons of the Ice Age: only when the intense cold of the last ice age began to dissolve, more than 10,000 years ago, began the cultivation, and with this the urbanization and - ultimately - the beginning of the history. It may seem paradoxical, but it was the warming of the climate to create us. Throughout human history, on the other hand, the climate is certainly not remained stable and its effects on the cultures have been enormous. We can not disregard the climatic conditions from the study of civilizations, peoples, wars, migrations, famines, religions and even art and literature. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Earth's climate is an integral part and an unaware engine of the historical, political and cultural human development and Wolfgang Behringer demonstrates it for the first time in extended form, with clarity and plenty of examples.
One thing is the climate change, another is the cultural response of man to temperatures changing, in the cold sixteenth century as in the hot today