WEATHERING THE STORM

Peter Frankopan’s book brings a genuinely global perspective to climate change and how it has shaped the course of world history

- Amita Baviskar

THE EARTH TRANSFORMED
An Untold History
by Peter Frankopan
BLOOMSBURY

To be alive in the 21st century is to inhabit a paradox. Never before have we been able to alter our environment so thoroughly. Air conditioning, internet connectivity, speedy travel, and products from around the globe have made the world our oyster. Yet, that oyster is agitated by turbulent currents, cracked open by floods, droughts, fires and plagues that seem to be visited upon us by vengeful gods. The technical instruments we control and the political and economic institutions we have built seem to be failing. And much of the crisis is our own fault.

Peter Frankopan tells us that none of this is new. The scale of the crisis may now be planetary but, over millennia, many civilisations that sought to conquer their environment confronted a similar threat of collapse. Whether mighty empires melted away or survived depended on how they responded to factors beyond their control. At the same time, the collapse of centralised power did not necessarily create chaos. Instead, it could lead to more sustainable, democratic modes of living.