Discovering the ice ages : international reception and consequences for a historical understanding of climate / / by Tobias Krüger ; translated by Ann M. Hentschel.

• Author: Krüger, Tobias, 1976-
• TeilnehmendeR: Hentschel, Ann.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: History of science and medicine library, v. 37; History of Science and Medicine Library 37.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (554 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction -- How Erratic Blocks Caught the Eye of Science -- Glacier Advances and Icy Theories : 1810-1830 -- Glacier and Ice-Age Theories in the First Half of the 1830's -- The Grand Synthesis -- International Reception of Glacial Theory -- The Search for Causes of the Ice Ages -- Conclusions.