Discovering the Ice Ages

International Reception and Consequences for a Historical Understanding of Climate
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-90-04-24169-5
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 37, 536 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 970 g

Reihe: History of Science and Medicine Library

Tobias Krüger explores the discovery of the Ice Ages, how the idea was received, and what further research it stimulated. The approach used in Discovering the Ice Ages is uniquely sweeping. The contemporary debates on the subject are compared from an international perspective. Krüger retraces the arguments advanced from the middle of the 18th century to the threshold of the 20th century. The positions held by defenders of the glacial theory as well as those by its most important opponents are set within the context of the then current understanding of geology. In an interdisciplinary overview Krüger then focuses on the impetus gained from early ice-age research. The most prominent examples worth mentioning are the discovery of trace gases and the greenhouse effect.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Krüger, Tobias

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Klimawandel, Globale Erwärmung
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Geowissenschaften Geologie Geschichte der Geowissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface and Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. How Erratic Blocks Caught the Eye of Science

3. Glacier Advances and Icy Theories: 1810–1830

4. Glacier and Ice-Age Theories in the First Half of the 1830’s

5. The Grand Synthesis

6. International Reception of Glacial Theory

7. The Search for Causes of the Ice Ages

8. Conclusions

Sources

List of Figures

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Tobias Krüger, Ph.D. (2006), University of Berne; MAS in Archival, Library and Information Science (2008). Scientific collaborator State Archives Soleure, Switzerland. He has published on the history of glacial geology, climate perception, administrative history and miscellaneous articles in the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.