When Indonesia`s Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, it unleashed the most destructive wave of extreme weather the world has witnessed in thousands of years. The volcano`s massive sulfate dust cloud enveloped the Earth, cooling temperatures & disrupting major weather systems for more than three years. Communities worldwide endured famine, disease, & civil unrest on a catastrophic scale. Here, Gillen D` Arcy Wood traces Tambora`s global & historical reach: how the volcano`s three-year climate change regime initiated the first worldwide cholera pandemic, expanded opium markets in China, & plunged the United States into its first economic depression. Bringing the history of this planetary emergency to life, Tambora sheds light on the fragile interdependence of climate & human societies to offer a cautionary tale about the potential tragic impacts of drastic climate change in our own century.