The Earth Transformed: An Untold History

In this sweeping history, Oxford historian Frankopan (The New Silk Roads) explores how climate has shaped human history, and how humans have shaped the climate in return. He suggests that climate is a “crucial and much overlooked theme in global history” with sometimes catastrophic consequences, such as when volcanic eruptions around the world in the 530s and ’40s belched a stratospheric haze that dimmed the sun and caused global cooling, crop failures, and famine. Industrialization, the author contends, marked a turning point in humanity’s relationship with the environment as pollution, deforestation, and the depletion of resources posed formidable threats to civilization (he notes the High Plains aquifer crucial to U.S. agriculture is being depleted faster than rainfall can replenish it). Frankopan shows that while environmental upheaval has been a constant presence roiling human affairs, what’s varied has been the ability of societies to adapt. Indus Valley denizens, for example, successfully diversified their crops to adjust to erratic precipitation around 2000 BCE, but less lucky were Chinese citizens under the 10th century Tang Dynasty, which was overthrown after leaders failed to effectively respond to difficulties caused by drought. 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. (Apr.)