Overview

THE TIMES BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023 A BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK FOR THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT AND FINANCIAL TIMES A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK | AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history' Financial Times 'Vast, learned and timely work' Sunday Times ------ From the international bestselling author of The Silk Roads comes a major history of how a changing climate has dramatically shaped the development—and demise—of civilisations across time. When we think about history, we rarely pay much attention to the most destructive floods, the worst winters, the most devastating droughts or the ways that ecosystems have changed over time. In The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan, one of the world’s leading historians, shows that the natural environment is a crucial, if not the defining, factor in global history – and not just of humankind. Volcanic eruptions, solar activities, atmospheric, oceanic and other shifts, as well as anthropogenic behaviour, are fundamental parts of the past and the present. In this magnificent and groundbreaking book, we learn about the origins of our species: about the development of religion and language and their relationships with the environment; about how the desire to centralise agricultural surplus formed the origins of the bureaucratic state; about how growing demands for harvests resulted in the increased shipment of enslaved peoples; about how efforts to understand and manipulate the weather have a long and deep history. All provide lessons of profound importance as we face a precarious future of rapid global warming. Taking us from the Big Bang to the present day and beyond, The Earth Transformed forces us to reckon with humankind’s continuing efforts to make sense of the natural world. ----- 'This is epic, gripping, original history that leaps off the page' Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland '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 A 2023 HIGHLIGHT FOR: BBC NEWS * SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE * FINANCIAL TIMES * NEW EUROPEAN * GUARDIAN * NEW STATESMAN * THE TIMES * THE WEEK * WATERSTONES * BLACKWELL'S

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Reviews

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 by @peterfrankopan truly 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 He 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 * 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 A vital, epic history of climate change * Telegraph * 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 * 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; fascinating . . . 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 * Praise for Peter Frankopan: 'He has the gift of perspective - the capacity to see the wood for the trees--which he combines with a Tolstoyan knack for weaving little details into the broader sweep of human affairs -- Jamie Susskind * Daily Telegraph * Frankopan is a brilliant guide to terra incognita -- Niall Ferguson * Sunday Times * Peter Frankopan has a sharp eye for startling facts -- Richard Drayton * Times Literary Supplement * An expert guide to the history of human interventions in the landscape, the role the climate has played in altering the history of the world, and how our own species has shaped terrestrial, marine and atmospheric conditions . . . A wise, well-researched and essential study for our precarious times * Independent * [His] skill is that he able to step back a few more paces from the world map and global events than most modern commentators, whilst encouraging us to use history as a way of looking forward than regressing into the past -- Joseph Wilkins * Total Politics * He is a Herodotus of the twenty-first century * Irish Left Review *

Author Information

Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, published by Bloomsbury in 2015, was a No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller and remained in the top 10 for nine months after publication. It was named one of the ‘Books of the Decade’ 2010–2020 by the Sunday Times. The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World was published by Bloomsbury in 2018 and won the Human Sciences prize of the Carical Foundation in 2019.

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