A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK | AN INSTANT #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
‘Humanity has transformed the Earth: Frankopan transforms our understanding of history’ Financial Times
‘Vast, learned and timely work’ Sunday Times
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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.
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‘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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A beautiful gift for the adventurers in your family.

This atlas of the world presents a complete view of the world, bringing it to life through innovative maps, stunning images and detailed content. It offers an exciting perspective on how the planet is made up, how it looks and how it works.

This world atlas includes:
• Highly detailed, updated regional and world-wide mapping
• Wide range of topical issues covered including natural disasters, population, climate and the environment
• Key country statistics allow comparisons of their state of development and an understanding of today’s world
• Thousands of facts and statistics including world and continental ranking tables

Mapping updates include;
• Country name changes – Czechia (formerly Czech Rep.), Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and North Macedonia (formerly Macedonia)
• Place name changes in New Zealand and Australia
• Administrative structures in India, France, Ghana, Kazakhstan and Norway
• Changes to capital cities in Burundi and Kazakhstan
• Railways in France, motorways in UK, Russia and Ireland, new rail and road bridge across Kerch Strait

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