Most people can name the great leaders and major battles of the past. Few can name the biggest storms, the most significant floods, the worst winters, the most severe droughts. In Climate: A Lost HIstory, Peter Frankopan reveals the extent to which climate has been overlooked as a major theme in global history – and how it has shaped our world in ways we do not often think about or understand.
The relationship between humans and the natural world raises a huge set of questions and challenges: about agricultural surplus and the origins of the bureaucratic state; about how religions and language can trace their evolution to climate, environment and geography; about race and slavery and the extraction of resources; about the dissemination of knowledge through the desire to tame nature; about why the twenty-first century is at a moment of crisis. Taking us from the beginning of recorded history to the present day, Frankopan demonstrates that concerns about the climate are nothing new. Rather, they follow in a long tradition of humankind’s efforts to make sense of and live within the natural world.
By turns revolutionary and revelatory, invigorating and incisive, Climate is a landmark work that invites a new and urgent perspective on our shared past.
