Wide-ranging, topical and revelatory, this monumental account from the author of The Silk Roads of how the natural world has shaped human history sheds fascinating new light on both today's climate crisis and the epochal shifts of the past.
Most people can name the influential leaders and major battles of the past. Few can name the most destructive storms, the worst winters, the most devastating droughts. In The Earth Transformed, ground-breaking historian Peter Frankopan reconnects us with our ancestors who, like us, worshipped, exploited and conserved the natural environment - and draws salutary conclusions about what the future may bring.
In this revelatory book, Frankopan shows that engagement with the natural world and with climatic change and their effects on us are not new: exploring, for instance, how the development of religion and language and their relationships with the environment; tracing how growing demands for harvests resulted in the increased shipment of enslaved peoples; scrutinising how the desire to centralise agricultural surplus formed the origins of the bureaucratic state; and seeing how efforts to understand and manipulate the weather have a long and deep history.
Understanding how past shifts in natural patterns have shaped history, and how our own species has shaped terrestrial, marine and atmospheric conditions is not just important but essential at a time of growing awareness of the severity of the climate crisis. Taking us from the beginning of recorded history to the present day, The Earth Transformed forces us to reckon with humankind's continuing efforts to make sense of the natural world.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781526622556
Number of pages: 736
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
Frankopan shows you how everything fits together . . . vast, learned and timely . . . The Earth Transformed is Sapiens for grown-ups . . . it holds lessons for a world grappling with rapid climate change caused by human industry - Dan Jones, Sunday Times
Frankopan has brought all this scholarly work together into a massive book that is comprehensive, well-informed and fascinating. It has the intellectual weight and dramatic force of a tsunami . . . This is an endlessly fascinating book, an easy read on an important issue - Gerard DeGroot, The Times
Frankopan demonstrates an impressive mastery of anthropological, historical, and meteorological literature, and his scrupulously evenhanded analysis carefully notes uncertainties in scientific and historical evidence. Elegant and cogently argued, this illuminates an age-old and urgently important dynamic - Publishers Weekly
[Frankopan] succeeds in mastering a seemingly impossible challenge, distilling an immense mass of historical sources, scientific data and modern scholarship that span thousands of years and the entire globe into an epic and spellbinding story. Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history - Financial Times
This is epic, gripping, original history that leaps off the page. I wanted to buy everyone I know a copy - Sathnam Sanghera
All Historians aiming to tell a narrative face the problem of when exactly to start it. Only Peter Frankopan would go back 2.5 billion years to the Great Oxidation Event - Tom Holland
Vast, learned and timely work - Sunday Times
A dazzling compendium of global research . . . The value of this book is as an act of deep understanding, recognising not only scientifically but culturally and philosophically that we are epiphenomena – not dominators of the Earth but products of it - Adam Nicolson, Spectator
The Earth Transformed is an epic masterpiece. There are many 'big ideas' books out there, but often are beset by wafer-thin scholarship, and few stand up to scrutiny. This absolutely does. It's a book for the ages, and I cannot recommend it enough - Adam Rutherford
[Frankopan] has attempted successfully, and deftly, what few others have and provided an overarching perspective of the way climatic events and trends, geography and human opportunism have intertwined and defined Homo sapiens’ relationship with the planet - Geographical
The Earth Transformed makes a major contribution to raising awareness and concern, and hopefully will reach those decision makers, in the political and commercial spheres, who might have the power and means to do something about it. In many ways, this fascinating and thoughtful book’s lack of an overt political message—and its clear focus on the lessons we can learn from past civilisations and their response to climate change—make it all the more powerful a weapon, for which Prof Frankopan deserves credit and thanks - Country Life
Importantly, Frankopan shows our modern concerns about the environment are no modish fad: they were shared by ancient thinkers and leaders. Anyone with an interest in building a more sustainable world would do well to read his book - New Scientist
Peter Frankopan reveals how our lives have been shaped by environmental changes since the emergence of Homo sapiens in this sweeping, riveting study - Observer
Extraordinary . . . a work of vast scholarship. This is the first wide-ranging account of humanity's relationship with the natural world — both climate and environment . . . If this book does not make us think, then nothing will. The Earth Transformed could hardly be more timely - Sir Antony Beevor, Daily Mail
Frankopan has done the sterling, even heroic job of making readily available much of the bountiful harvest of research in climate and environmental history. For thousands of aficionados of door-stopper history books, this one is likely to be their introduction to climate and environmental history - TLS
A wise, well-researched and essential study for our precarious times - Independent
A vital, epic history of climate change . . . Marries a serious, timely subject – the story of humanity from the perspective of climate change, both natural and man-made – with thumpingly readable prose. Frankopan may be an Oxford professor, but this is an exercise in scholarship worn gossamer-lightly. The Earth Transformed is a testament to the awesome value of in-depth research. Frankopan’s skill is to create a new genre: the ecological epic history - Alexander Larman, Daily Telegraph
Peter’s book is an incredible, must read, magnum opus on the history of humanity and the environment, and I THOROUGHLY suggest you read it - Greg Jenner
Raises fresh and urgent questions . . . in characteristically pacey style . . . Above all, his work will encourage readers to think differently about the past - Economist
Unputdownable. Seriously good and mind altering - Emily Maitlis
The Earth Transformed aims for nothing less than the history of the world . . . A rewarding book - Mint
Frankopan’s discussion flows effortlessly, buoyed by novel connections . . . The scale of Frankopan’s ambition is admirable . . . There’s nothing so infectious as the curiosity and wonder of a talented author delighting in the details of his research . . . Must read . . . I remained engrossed until the end - Perspective Magazine
Epic . . . profound analysis; an amazing insight into how climate influenced history . . . This is a book every academician and policymaker must read. It is a book that students interested in climate change will find enthralling - Tribune
An immense work of scholarship . . . I know of no volume that tells the story with the breadth and depth of Frankopan’s The Earth Transformed. The book’s scope is extraordinary - Prospect
A remarkable piece of work - New Indian Express
On almost every page in The Earth Transformed Frankopan summons and weighs vast scientific literatures . . . Here we see the historian as an expert reader of scientific archives – databases, genetics, climate records - Sydney Morning Herald
This is a history book with a purpose, for the age of climate emergency and nature crisis . . . A great work - Politics Home
Like a vast, twisted but very fascinating gothic novel . . . One of the many things I admired about this work was the easy, confident way in which Peter Frankopan encompasses every region of the Earth - History Today
Sweeping in ambition and scale, Peter Frankopan’s The Earth Transformed tackles the history of climate change and how it has shaped human history over a 5,000-year period. Lest this sound too forbidding, be assured that the book is brilliantly shaped throughout by the human touch - Rana Mitter, BBC History Magazine, 2023 Books of the Year
The Earth Transformed is hard to summarise, and certainly harder to pin to a category. It is more than a history book, more than just a history of the world.
If you've read Silk Roads, that cemented...
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I am serious, this should be standard text for us all. I bought it 2 days ago, and despite the size, I find myself more than half way through.
Informative, written in a very accessible way, and the research.... oh my...
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In this book historian Frankopan looks at how climate has impacted on world events. In his view the two are inextricably linked and human impact is also a driver for climatic events. This is a masterly and apposite... More
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