tl;dr: a very entertaining account of climate-change beliefs across history. Personally I found the writing style very pleasant.
I don't like overly flowery language, but I don't mind a person with a good grasp on language and composition writing a piece that is more than "'A' because 'B' followed by 'C'. The end." Maybe it's a fine line...
Lack of gratuitous size in buildings there makes sense from heating costs alone - let alone sustainable population densities. Why make more space to warm than you need to live or defend? Plus why spend time making grand rock piles when there is winter to prepare for?
This isn't intended as a putdown to other cultures as frivolous- to them there is less reason to prepare excess food which would never get eaten and would probably rot. Why pickle what you can get fresh except for liking the taste - at which point it is mere luxury salt consumption compared to just getting it fresh.
Although I have a bit more tolerance for "multithreaded" topic presentation than most so I may be in the minority when it comes to interweaving.
>Although I have a bit more tolerance for "multithreaded" topic presentation than most so I may be in the minority when it comes to interweaving.
The interwoven-tapestry-that-presents-a-greater-picture-but-is-hard-to-see-all-at-once is one of my favorite styles of writing! When the writing is both focused, but also somewhat vague, and leaves a feeling at the end of a piece...that can feel more powerful to me than a very directed and clear diatribe. The style seems to draw out more of an empathetic, irrational side that feels like 'faith', almost. Annie Dillard and Eliot Weinberger are a couple of authors that put me in this state.
You may or may not enjoy this: https://harpers.org/archive/2015/02/in-the-beginning/
And sometimes prefer it to accurate explanations; the school of TED talks and Freakonomics and so forth.