Taking us from the beginning of our story to the present day, A Cold Spell examines\n\nhow ice has shaped our thoughts, actions and societies – and what it means for us\nthat it is rapidly disappearing from our planet\n'A warm-hearted tale of the bizarre, something to cuddle up with in the bleak\nmidwinter . . . Astonishing' THE TIMES\n'Bracingly original . . . As the earth warms threateningly, there could hardly be a more\npertinent time for a story like this’ MICHAEL PALIN\n'A book of limitless fascinations' OLIVIA LAING\n'Brightly written, nimbly researched and really quite delightful' LITERARY REVIEW\nIce has confounded, delighted and fascinated us since the first sparks of art and culture\nin Europe and it now underpins the modern world. Without ice, we would not feed\nourselves or heal our sick as we do, and our towns and cities, countryside and oceans\nwould look very different. Science would not have progressed along the avenues it did\nand our galleries and libraries would be missing many masterpieces.\nA Cold Spell uses this vital link to understanding our past to tell a surprising story of\nobsession, invention and adventure – how we have lived and dreamed, celebrated and\ntraded, innovated, loved and fought over thousands of years. It brings together a\nsacrificial Incan mummy, Winston Churchill’s secret plans for unusual aircraft carriers,\nstrange bones that shook Victorian beliefs about the world and a macabre journey into\nthe depths of the human body. It is an original and unique way of looking at something\nthat is literally all around us, whose loss confronts us daily in the news, but whose\nimpact on our lives has never been fully explored.\n[An] extraordinary, complete and utter history of the human experience of the cold\nstuff' JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL, COUNTRY LIFE\n‘A thought­provoking chronicle of humanity . . . Leonard consistently frames ice in\nsurprising and insightful ways, and in doing so lends it a magical quality’\nGEOGRAPHICAL