The history of world civilisations is firmly interwoven with the climate and all its variations. This statement holds good not only since industrialisation and the associated impact of humankind. Early societies built on the agricultural life were often successful precisely because of climate change and the way in which people adapted to it. Drawing on the most recent research, Franz Mauelshagen describes the major fluctuations of the climate and its implications for the course of history, from the Stone Age to the Roman Climatic Optimum, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age and up to modern times and our Global Warming.