Volcanoes in Human History
By Jelle de Boer and Don Sanders
Princeton University Press  (2002)

Throughout history, volcanic eruptions have profoundly and sometimes catastrophically altered the course of civilization. The long-range impact of these geological events has often been far greater than the immediate toll in terms of death and destruction. Indeed, their cultural aftershocks have reverberated for hundreds even thousands of years. Consider…

The myth of Atlantis, the Biblical Exodus, the demise of Minoan civilization, and the rise of Classical Greece all may have had their roots in the Bronze-Age eruption of Thera, a volcano in the eastern Mediterranean.

The ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, with their continuing influence on Western art and architecture, date from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. Moreover, Vesuvius has figured prominently in mythology, poetry, and literature, becoming part of the collective consciousness of the Western world.

In 1815, a volcano in Indonesia named Tambora exploded in the greatest eruption known to history. The eruption killed as many as 100,000 people outright and triggered climatic changes and social unrest around the world as ash and dust, carried by high-altitude winds, circled the globe and dimmed the sun’s rays. The freakish weather inspired Byron’s gloomy poem "Darkness" and Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.

These are just some of the geological events discussed in Volcanoes in Human History. Intended for general readers, the book emphasizes the many ways in which selected geological events have affected humankind, while briefly explaining, in plain English, the underlying geological phenomena.

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