The incredible true story of how a cycle of rain, cold, disease, and warfare created the worst famine in European history—years before the Black Death, from the author of Justinian's Flea and the forthcoming Miracle Cure In May 1315, it started to rain. For the seven disastrous years that followed, Europeans would be visited by a series of curses unseen since the third book of Exodus: floods, ice, failures of crops and cattle, and epidemics not just of disease, but of pike, sword, and spear. All told, six million lives—one-eighth of Europe’s total population—would be lost. With a category-defying knowledge of science and history, William Rosen tells the stunning story of the oft-overlooked Great Famine with wit and drama and demonstrates what it all means for today’s discussions of climate change.

This compelling account charts the relentless trajectory of humankind, and its changing survival and disease patterns, across place and time from when our ancient ancestors roamed the African Savannah to today's populous, industrialised, globalising world. This expansion of human frontiers - geographic, climatic, cultural and technological - has encountered frequent setbacks from disease, famine and dwindling resources. The social and environmental transformations wrought by agrarianism, industrialisation, fertility control, social modernisation, urbanisation and mass consumption have profoundly affected patterns of health and disease. Today, as life expectancies rise, the planet's ecosystems are being damaged by the combined weight of population size and intensive economic activity. Global warming, stratospheric ozone depletion and loss of biodiversity pose large-scale hazards to human health and survival. Recognising this, can we achieve a transition to sustainability? This and other profound questions underlie this chronicle of expansive human activity, social change, environmental impact and their health consequences.

The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

In this book, we’ll discuss the identity of the Black Horse of the Apocalypse and his plagues of famine and hyperinflation. We will look specifically at the engines of power in the world and their trails of blood. God has filled this world with everything we need to feed ourselves and enjoy peace and prosperity, but He also allows us to face the consequences of our decisions, whether they are wise or less-than-wise.

They came to earth--Pestilence, War, Famine, Death--four horsemen riding their screaming steeds, racing to the corners of the world. Four horsemen with the power to destroy all of humanity. They came to earth, and they came to end us all. Ana da Silva always assumed she'd die young, but she never expected it to be at the hands of the haunting immortal who spared her life years ago. Famine. But if the horseman remembers her, he must not care, for when she comes face to face with him for the second time in her life, she's stabbed and left for dead. Only, she doesn't quite die. If there's one thing Famine is good at, it's cruelty. He can't forget the pain humanity has brought him, and he's ready to bring it back to them tenfold. But when Ana, a ghost from his past, corners him for what he did to her, she and her empty threats captivate him, and he decides to keep her around. In spite of themselves, Ana and Famine are drawn to each other. But at the end of the day, the two are enemies. Nothing changes that. Not one kind act, not two. And definitely not a few steamy nights. But enemies or reluctant lovers, if they don't stop themselves soon, heaven will.

The MacDonald sisters started life in the lower-middle classes, denied the advantages of education and the expectation of social advancement. Yet, as wives and mothers, they connected a famous painter, a president of the Royal Academy, a prime minister, and the uncrowned poet laureate of the Empire.

From the acclaimed author of Miracle Cure and The Third Horseman, the epic story of the collision between one of nature's smallest organisms and history's mightiest empire During the golden age of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian reigned over a territory that stretched from Italy to North Africa. It was the zenith of his achievements and the last of them. In 542 AD, the bubonic plague struck. In weeks, the glorious classical world of Justinian had been plunged into the medieval and modern Europe was born. At its height, five thousand people died every day in Constantinople. Cities were completely depopulated. It was the first pandemic the world had ever known and it left its indelible mark: when the plague finally ended, more than 25 million people were dead. Weaving together history, microbiology, ecology, jurisprudence, theology, and epidemiology, Justinian's Flea is a unique and sweeping account of the little known event that changed the course of a continent.