The Earth Transformed
An Untold History
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Narrated by:
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Peter Frankopan
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By:
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Peter Frankopan
About this listen
A revolutionary new history that reveals how climate change has dramatically shaped the development—and demise—of civilizations across time
Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our current environmental crisis feels difficult to predict and understand. But climate change and its effects on us are not new. In a bold narrative that spans centuries and continents, Peter Frankopan argues that nature has always played a fundamental role in the writing of history. From the fall of the Moche civilization in South America that came about because of the cyclical pressures of El Niño to volcanic eruptions in Iceland that affected Egypt and helped bring the Ottoman empire to its knees, climate change and its influences have always been with us.
Frankopan explains how the Vikings emerged thanks to catastrophic crop failure, why the roots of regime change in eleventh-century Baghdad lay in the collapse of cotton prices resulting from unusual climate patterns, and why the western expansion of the frontiers in North America was directly affected by solar flare activity in the eighteenth century. Again and again, Frankopan shows that when past empires have failed to act sustainably, they have been met with catastrophe. Blending brilliant historical writing and cutting-edge scientific research, The Earth Transformed will radically reframe the way we look at the world and our future.
*Includes a downloadable PDF of historic maps and global charts from the book, as well as the written acknowledgements
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Peter Frankopan (P)2023 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2023: BBC NEWS, SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW EUROPEAN, GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, THE TIMES (LONDON), AND THE WEEK
"An essential epic that runs from the dawn of time to, oh, six o’clock yesterday." —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker
"Frankopan shows you how everything fits together...Vast, learned and timely work...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, The Sunday Times
"Frankopan has brought all of 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 (London)
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From Joseph Romm, Chief Science Advisor for National Geographic's Years of Living Dangerously series and one of Rolling Stone's "100 people who are changing America," Climate Change offers user-friendly, scientifically rigorous answers to the most difficult (and commonly politicized) questions surrounding what climatologist Lonnie Thompson has deemed "a clear and present danger to civilization."
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Religious not scientific claims and preachings
- By Jeanne Renzo on 09-19-19
By: Joseph Romm
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The Rational Optimist
- How Prosperity Evolves
- By: Matt Ridley
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.
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Personal
- By Robert F. Jones on 09-15-17
By: Matt Ridley
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An Edible History of Humanity
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst of social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy, entertaining account of how a series of changes---caused, enabled, or influenced by food---has helped to shape and transform societies around the world.
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Flawed, but worthwhile
- By Ary Shalizi on 12-28-17
By: Tom Standage
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Collapse
- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.
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Jared Diamond Downs You in Explanation
- By Rob on 07-20-18
By: Jared Diamond
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Apocalypse Never
- Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
- By: Michael Shellenberger
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
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Environmentalist with integrity!
- By Wayne on 07-01-20
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The Fate of Rome
- Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire
- By: Kyle Harper
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes listeners from Rome's pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted.
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Interesting and worthwhile
- By B. Coleman on 06-15-19
By: Kyle Harper
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Overheated
- How Climate Change Will Cause Floods, Famine, War, and Disease
- By: Andrew T. Guzman
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Deniers of climate change sometimes quip that claims about global warming are more about political science than climate science. They are wrong on the science, but may be right with respect to its political implications. A hotter world, writes Andrew Guzman, will bring unprecedented migrations, famine, war, and disease. It will be a social and political disaster of the first order.
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A must read!
- By Ted on 03-22-15
By: Andrew T. Guzman
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Against the Grain
- A Deep History of the Earliest States
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.
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World without Women
- By Paul Richards on 04-28-18
By: James C. Scott
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Sustainability
- A History
- By: Jeremy L. Caradonna
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Caradonna's unique and concise history broadens our understanding of what "sustainability" means, revealing how it progressed from a relatively marginal concept to an ideal that shapes everything from individual lifestyles, government and corporate strategies, and even national and international policy. For anyone seeking understand the history of those striving to make the world a better place to live, here's a place to start.
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Excellent
- By marc grub on 03-06-17
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Disunited Nations
- The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Peter Zeihan, Roy Worley
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In Disunited Nations, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan presents a series of counterintuitive arguments about the future of a world where trade agreements are coming apart and international institutions are losing their power. Germany will decline as the most powerful country in Europe, with France taking its place. Every country should prepare for the collapse of China, not North Korea. We are already seeing, as Zeihan predicts, a shift in outlook on the Middle East: it is no longer Iran that is the region’s most dangerous threat, but Saudi Arabia.
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brilliant geopolitical primer re the future
- By Howard on 04-11-20
By: Peter Zeihan
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A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
- A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
- By: Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism.
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A remarkable exposé & synthesis of the Ponzi scheme that capitalism is and always has been.
- By Scott on 02-10-18
By: Raj Patel, and others
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The Vertical Farm
- Feeding the World in the 21st Century
- By: Dickson Despommier
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big - he thought up. The vertical farm has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. These farms, grown inside skyscrapers, would provide solutions to many of the serious problems we currently face.
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Excellent Brainstorming - Not reality
- By Texas Community Project on 01-25-11
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An Absolutely SUPERB Book for Lovers of History
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too easy to confuse with the full version
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The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. Their deeds still resonate today. Indeed, these nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East.
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Excellent material, well-written, interesting, but spoiled by inept narrator.
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Knowing What We Know
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Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
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Sparks
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The past is a battleground in many countries, but in China it is crucial to political power. In traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. Marxism gave this a modern gloss, describing history as an unstoppable force heading toward Communism's triumph. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and glorify its rule. But in recent years, independent writers, artists, and filmmakers have begun challenging this state-led disremembering.
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brilliant
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too easy to confuse with the full version
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Excellent material, well-written, interesting, but spoiled by inept narrator.
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Knowing What We Know
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Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
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The Greater Middle East—the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia—existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability. Robert D. Kaplan explores Greater Middle East through reporting and travel writing to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance.
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detailed primer on the greater 'Middle East'
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Origins
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When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the southeast United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea.
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GREAT Book with a Narrator Who's Falling Asleep
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The Future of Geography
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Humans are venturing up and out, and we’re taking our competitive spirit with us. Soon, what happens in space will shape human history as much the mountains, rivers, and seas have impacted civilizations around the world. It’s no coincidence that Russia, China, and the USA are leading the way. The next fifty years will change the face of global politics and the world order as we know it. In this must-listen work, bestselling author Tim Marshall navigates the new astropolitical reality to show how we got here and where we’re heading.
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Good Overview of Astro Politics
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Evolution Gone Wrong
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From blurry vision to crooked teeth, ACLs that tear at alarming rates and spines that seem to spend a lifetime falling apart, it's a curious thing that human beings have beaten the odds as a species. After all, we're the only survivors on our branch of the tree of life. Why is it that human mothers have such a life-endangering experience giving birth? And why are there entire medical specialties for teeth and feet? In this funny, wide-ranging and often surprising book, biologist Alex Bezzerides tells us just where we inherited our achy, brilliant bodies in the process of evolution.
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Answers questions you haven't thought of yet!
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A Crack in the Edge of the World
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San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.
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7 Hours and 45 minutes . . .
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Once upon a Prime
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We often think of mathematics and literature as polar opposites. But what if, instead, they were fundamentally linked? In her clear, insightful, laugh-out-loud funny debut, Once Upon a Prime, Professor Sarah Hart shows us the myriad connections between math and literature, and how understanding those connections can enhance our enjoyment of both. As the first woman to hold England’s oldest mathematical chair, Professor Hart is the ideal tour guide, taking us on an unforgettable journey through the books we thought we knew, revealing new layers of beauty and wonder.
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The Infinite Review
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The Silk Road
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In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the remarkable archaeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes. The Silk Road is a fascinating story of archaeological discovery, cultural transmission, and the intricate chains across Central Asia and China.
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terribly nerrated no intonation and pronounce
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A Private Spy
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The never-before-seen correspondence of John le Carré, one of the most important novelists of our generation, is collected in this beautiful volume. During his lifetime, le Carré wrote numerous letters to writers, spies, politicians, artists, actors and public figures. This collection is a treasure trove, revealing the late author's humor, generosity, and wit—a side of him many listeners have not previously seen.
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Truly engrossing from start to finish
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Thinking Better
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- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
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- Unabridged
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We are often told that hard work is the key to success. But success isn’t about hard work - it’s about shortcuts. Shortcuts allow us to solve one problem quickly so that we can tackle an even bigger one. They make us capable of doing great things. And according to Marcus du Sautoy, math is the very art of the shortcut. Thinking Better is a celebration of how math lets us do more with less.
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Very difficult to flow without diagrams
- By Khaled on 11-03-21
By: Marcus Du Sautoy
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How the World Made the West
- A 4,000 Year History
- By: Josephine Quinn
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
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In How the World Made the West, Josephine Quinn poses perhaps the most significant challenge ever to the “civilizational thinking” regarding the origins of Western culture—that is, the idea that civilizations arose separately and distinctly from one another. Rather, she locates the roots of the modern West in everything from the law codes of Babylon, Assyrian irrigation, and the Phoenician art of sail to Indian literature, Arabic scholarship, and the metalworking riders of the Steppe, to name just a few examples.
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Middling
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-24
By: Josephine Quinn
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The Fortunes of Africa
- A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor
- By: Martin Meredith
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 26 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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A sweeping history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.
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VAST & WELL RESEARCHED
- By Odomite on 02-03-21
By: Martin Meredith
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The Bright Ages
- A New History of Medieval Europe
- By: Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The word medieval conjures images of the “Dark Ages”. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. The Bright Ages takes us through 10 centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia, and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them.
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Does exactly what it claims to clarify
- By Aaron Rapozo on 12-13-21
By: Matthew Gabriele, and others
What listeners say about The Earth Transformed
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Carlos Vidali
- 12-15-23
Comprehensive and balanced review of climate and environment through the ages
It clarified many events of human history and the earth evolution and the insignificance of our journey as a race in the context of the future of the planet.
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 06-22-23
HUMANITY'S TRIAL
Peter Frankopan journeys from pre-history to the present to offer perspective on the earth’s global warming crisis. He reviews what is either speculated or known of disastrous world events. Frankopan recalls histories of major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, famines, pandemics, and epidemics that have changed the course of history. Frankopan wryly observes global warming is a crisis, but that human life is as likely to end from another cataclysmic natural event or nuclear war as the imminent warming of the world.
One hopes histories past lessons inform a future that includes a place for the youth of this, the next, and future generations. World change brought on by crises have been overcome in the past through human adaptation. It seems reasonable to presume, despite the ignorance of some national leaders, that humanity will survive today’s global warming crisis.
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- L.
- 05-20-24
Everyone should read this
Extensively researched, riveting, informative, enlightening. Ah, if all history books were like this! Outstanding work.
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- Big Sur Steve
- 04-24-23
Wow! What a book.
Wow. What a book. I read Peter’s book, Silk Road, and was impressed with Peter’s ability to extract events from human history to weave a fascinating story of cultural development and what events lead to the world we know today.
In his latest book, Earth Transformed, Peter describes how a variety of natural events shaped human history and how humans transformed the planet. I find Peter’s attention to detail impressive as he navigates a variety of naturally occurring phenomena and how they effected human society. Using data from a variety of sources including written human history, geology, climatology, and archaeology Peter is able to fill in the blanks on why cultures rose to power then failed.
Much of human history is guided by climate change, especially volcanic eruptions which cooled the planet leading to lower than expected crop yields and starvation in extreme cases.
The book begins 4.6 billion years ago when the planet was formed, Peter quickly takes the reader through the advent of first life on the planet, then goes into early man. The meat of the book begins with early civilizations about 11,000 years ago and brings the reader forward through a variety of cultures leading up to where we stand today.
While this book is more of a history book, it does leave the reader with where Peter stands on Global Warming. From what I gather, he thinks we are in deep Doo-Doo.
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- Gary
- 12-30-23
The effect of volcanic activity on climate over millennia.
The author consulted amount of world literature, from myth to peer reviewed research. He coordinated global literature that was written in response to specific events, such as volcanic activity, to illustrate effects over larger or smaller geographic and temporal scale. The author’s reading was very good.
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- Lucy A. Pithecus
- 04-21-23
A Thoughtful History of A Complex Phenomenon
I greatly enjoy this book and feel refreshed by its insightful and innovative interpretations of human social development. It is filled with enchanting stories that we are familiar with but told from different angles.
The author looks at history via a lens of how the climate shapes human behavior at the societal level and the success and unintended consequences of human attempts to change their surroundings. They are intriguing and informative snapshots of different civilizations and cultures in the river of time.
It's a long multi-disciplinary book, for there is no simple way to meaningfully examine and explain the interconnection between human actions and global climate shifts. The narratives cover paleoanthropology, geology, geography, climatology, history, sociology, religion, ecology, science, and all-encompassing.
After this book, if you like its way of peering into human history and want to delve deeper into certain aspects, check out these books from different perspectives (listed by publication time, mostly).
- Climate Crisis - "Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now" by John Doerr, Ryan Panchadsaram (2021)
- Finance/Economy - "Money, The True Story of a Made-Up Thing" by Jacob Goldstein (2020)
- Paleoanthropology -"Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari (2017)
- Early Geography - "Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States" by James C. Scott (2017)
- Biology/Evolution - "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" by Richard Dawkins (2009 and a classic)
- Sociology - "Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond (1997 and a classic)
- Something to go with a drink - "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" by Tom Standage (2011) (spoiler alert: half of the drinks are alcoholic)
- From the same author (Peter Frankopan, a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge) - "The Silk Road" (2015) and "The New Silk Road" (2018)
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- Desert Reader
- 10-25-23
A Wonderful Explanation
A very well-written explanation of the unrelenting devastation and death that has been, and continues to be, humanity’s only path. The progress and pattern of ecocide is detailed as so predictable that the book can almost seem monotonous at times. Yet, the author skillfully helps us confirm civilized Homo sapiens as an inevitably inept, bureaucratically inclined, greedy, power-hungry, self-infatuated, super predatory species.
A very good book.
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- Douglass
- 07-27-23
Human and natural causes of climate change
A wake up call and overview of the history of climate change and impacts on the world’s civilizations
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- Art
- 05-03-24
Started strong
First 1/4 was quite interesting with multitude of proxies used for an excellent discussion of early earth climate; unfortunately, once reaching the beginning of the renaissance, that ended. The remainder is simply a diatribe against colonialism followed by proxy measurements w/o justification and when actual data is available.
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- David
- 05-11-23
Things have always been bad.
I started this book hoping that the author would attempt to integrate modern climatic data into the broad outline of human history. I had read and enjoyed the author’s previous book, “The Silk Roads”. However, this book leaves much to be desired.
The author provides no overall framework to his tome. He begins by leaping across continents and thousands of years in a head-jerking fashion. While climatic interactions are a main topic, his persistent “woke” approach to history seems to say that everything was always terrible. His constant diatribes on civilization and the dangers of cities ignores much modern work on the vital influence of cities in the development of not only the modern world but of many cultures over time.
He is either unaware of or ignores such works as Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” No new information is provided here beyond works as Alfred Crosby’s “The Columbian Exchange” and Charles C. Mann’s wonderful “1491” and “1493”. His confused and cursory review of modern paleoanthropology is a mess.
Yes, there are myriad tragic examples of massive mistreatment by elites of indigenous peoples all over the world. Yes, many climatic variations were challenging to those living through them. But the author’s consistent, unrelenting pessimism reaches the level of downright fiction. If you count the numbers of mentions of negative climatic events versus the positive ones, the inevitable conclusion is that Frankopan believes that climate has gone downhill during the entire course of human history—a clearly false belief.
After enduring what can only be described as Herculean efforts to prove his “wokeness”, I reached the end of his treatment of the 19th century and just had to stop. He barely mentions the vast improvements in living standards and medical treatment in much of the world during that time.
As a narrator, Frankopan does a decent job. However, his curious mispronunciations of well-known words such as “Hyksos” and “ascetic” cause me to wonder about his overall education.
Finally, the author seems to have an unfortunate penchant for marginal, highly speculative theories about subjects such as the peopling of the New World and the affects of chlorine gas on the influenza epidemic of 1918.
As for his climate narrative, his attempts to forcibly synchronize climatic and cultural developments in the Americas with contemporaneous events in Eurasia seem very poorly justified.
Overall, I have to wonder that a professional scholar could produce a work of such erratic quality. I am reminded of the apocryphal aphorism, “History is just one damned thing after another”. Personally, I avoid books that, rather than clarifying history, attempt to turn it into botany by reducing a wonderfully complex topic to merely vast lists of disconnected events.
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5 people found this helpful