It's by Philipp Blom and is called 'Nature's Mutiny'.
It outlines the impact of a sudden reduction in temperature which spread across a significant part of Europe and the Northern hemisphere. It pieces together the impacts from a range of proxy sources, including artworks, diaries and other documents.
Various contemporary sources are mined. Paintings are one form of proxy data. Brueghel's 'Hunters in the Snow' is one famous picture showing the frozen landscapes of the time, traps to catch wild animals and other problems due to the unseasonal weather and cold.
There is a version of the painting in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which is one of my favourites.
The original is found in Vienna I believe.
Lance Tufnell was one of my lecturers when I completed my degree at Huddersfield Polytechnic. He spent a lot of time searching sources to help reconstruct past climates looking at old documents.
A Guardian article explores more about the Ice Age.
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