I like to cover the multiple crises we're facing and creating ourselves in big picture sort of way, showing how things are connected around the globe, across the tree of life, and across time. Thus I was really keen to read The Earth transformed, Peter Frankopan's globalaccount of the history of the world linking in climate history and human history just about everywhere.
Understandably, it has turned out a big book, and I struggled with it a bit at the beginning especially. I think the problem is that the author aims for academic precision in multiple details in a situation where a broad brush and a bit more generalisation would be helpful. This was particularly a problem in the chapters on prehistory, where the evidence is thin and every other sentence includes a caveat such as "some scholars think that".
It gets better when the author reaches properly documented history where he feels more at home, so I managed to read about 2/3 of the thing by the time my deadline approached, and managed to write some meaningful paragraphs about my view of the history of the world and its climate. My long essay review is out now in the May issue of Chemistry & Industry:
Shared history
Chemistry & Industry Volume 87, Issue 5, May 2023, Page 35
access via:
Wiley Online Library (paywalled PDF of the whole review section)
SCI (premium content, ie members only)
As always, I'm happy to send a PDF on request.
I love the old school cover. Even though I have a feeling I already know how the story ends, I will still read the last third once I have a gap between my review deadlines.
No comments:
Post a Comment