It was a Warning 1
Fire and Fury 7
The Gods Would Rise Up 9
The World Turned to Burning Ash 15
A Natural Experiment 34
Some Questions for the Reader, Also Known as You, Part I 38
A Death and a Birth 43
A Comet in the Sky 45
Red Skies and Red Snow 51
A Feedback Loop of Bad 53
It Was a Sign 58
Thunder Rolled Down the Year 65
Some Questions for the Reader, Also Known as You, Part II 70
A Life Without Compromise 73
Snow and Scandal 75
Frozen Feet and Frozen Birds 81
What is to Become of this Country 83
Hopes Fell Fast 87
Many Wrongs Do Not Make a Right 91
The First Wrong 93
The Second Wrong 97
The Third Wrong 99
The Many, Many, Many Other Wrongs 101
And a Right 103
Some Questions for the Reader, Also Known as You, Part III 107
Some Ate Soil 109
Clay and Cholera 111
Bread or Blood 117
We Must Have Flour Cheaper 119
This Extraordinary Terror 127
The Spark of Life Itself 131
A Hideous Phantasm 133
I Had Thought of a Story 140
A Good Year for Dread 143
A Very Short List of What Grew in Europe in 1816 145
A Very Short List of What Grew in the United States in 1816 148
Some Questions for the Reader, Also Known as You, Part IV 151
Bandits and Bludgeons 153
When You Don't Have Bread, Who's Afraid of Prison? 155
These Gruesome Figures 160
The Bright Sun was Extinguish'd 163
It was on a Dreary Night 165
A Castle on a Hill 170
What they Ate 173
A Continent Growls with Hunger 175
The Distressing Din 183
The Walking Dead 185
Some Questions for the Reader, Also Known as You, Part V 191
Should People Live or Die? 195
A Soup of the Day, Every Day 197
A World in Motion 203
Up and Over the Mountain 205
How to Make a Man into a Horse 209
The Very Best of Intentions 215
She Would Not Waste It 217
A Fever Dream 220
Some Questions for the Reader, Also Known as You, Part VI 223
Bells and Singing 227
A World Exhales 229
No One Imagined It Was Mary 235
Dangerous Waters 237
The Time of the Ash Rain 247
You Have to Imagine it Ablaze 249
A Distortion Field 252
A Question for the Reader, Also Known as You, and the Author, Also Known as Me 256
Our Creature 258
A Delicate, Dangerous Line 262
A Final Question for All of Us 265
Acknowledgments 267
Bibliography 269
Notes 277
Index 291