History through climate change

Historian Peter Frankopan traces the story of human civilisation through its impact on the biosphere

The Earth Transformed: An Untold History

Author: Peter Frankopan
 

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 695

Price: Rs 850
 

Writing this review at this time, there is no shortage of headlines that attest to how the changes in earth’s living fabric wrought by human hands are coming back to bite us. Forest fires in Canada have made sure the air quality in New York rivals that of Delhi, Mexico, or Jakarta. Half a planet across in Beijing the clarion call for a new ecological civilisation sees a flurry of activity. Yet, as in many countries after the crash of 2008, the scale of environmentally destructive activities, such as mining and burning more coal, oil and gas continues to grow. The promise of turnaround is often just that, a promise.

Peter Frankopan is no stranger to taking on large themes and achieving the mastery of an ace story teller. His two works on the Silk Roads of Asia past and present avoided the trap of Eurocentrism. So too does this fine new offering, which is a tapestry of human encounters with the larger environment. In his telling, the story of human civilisation is much about changes in the biosphere and how they had significant but uneven impacts on different sets of people in various places on earth.

In common with those who see overemphasis on the recent past, the Industrial Revolution since the late 18th century or, indeed, the huge and epochal growth of the petrochemical economy after World War II as problematic, Frankopan manages to strike a fine balance. These recent times have seen huge changes leading to efforts for repair and renewal but there was no Golden Age. The scale, nature and impact of hunting and firing grassland, of cutting forest or taming ungulates and of smelting, sailing, fishing, whaling, and deepening ponds to save water, each and all left a mark on the land, the waters and other life forms.

What is striking is the way millennia of time are reduced to two dozen chapters, each eminently readable on its own and with titles that intrigue and entice the reader. It is sobering to learn that the emergence of hominids, then Homo Sapiens walking up right and kindling fire was not a sudden irruption but took many steps and missteps. Equally so of how the outmigration from Africa entailed cross breeding notably with the Neanderthals.

Each phase and stage ever since is inseparable from larger events, both natural and driven by some, if not all, humans themselves. Thus seafarers reached Australia some 50,000 years ago, changed the landscape with fire and took along mainland Asian dogs that were ancestors of the dingo.

This reviewer found special insight where there were large unintended consequences of nature’s cycles. Thus, the expansion of Roman power coincided with and was enabled in part by a warm period of eight centuries ending around the year 300 of the Common Era. The plagues that struck Europe and China, among others, in the 1340s were facilitated by climatic conditions early on. A string of poor harvests made many in Europe more vulnerable than normal. In parts of Asia, the consumption of marmots indirectly contributed to the spread of pathogens. Often there was no line between the human and animal worlds, or between where “nature” ended and the human built spaces began. The same tapestry that enables prosperity can unravel and undermine it.

Frankopan is special as he has both the rare knack of insight into exceptional moments in the past and the sense of balance that avoids mono-causal explanations. The contraction of human numbers due to excess mortality in the Black Death is acknowledged but with careful attention to the uneven impact on different regions, or sections of society. Yet it was the only time in two millennia when, as ice core analysis shows, metal output as well as lead content in the atmosphere declined. The environmental footprint shrank as economic activity and human numbers both shrank.

There is little doubt in the author’s view that humanity is living beyond its means. Where he stands out is in showing this is by no means the first time humanity has done so. Also that the webs of exchange forged as early as 35 centuries ago link us together in ways unique to our species. At the same time, geological events such as volcano and caldera bursts and the rise and fall of sea levels as climates have changed long predate our own era of human-accelerated global ecological changes.

If the past is any guide, it is to learn from it that human hubris is matched by ingenuity, and wanton acts by attempts at wisdom. There are many places where regional and discipline specialists will feel the broad-brush stroke obscures nuance. It is not easy to do justice to early Asia and modern Europe and the economic revolutions as well as ecological transitions. But this is to cavil at a work that more than matches the promise of a story told anew.

Endnote:

The reviewer teaches history and environmental studies at Ashoka University, Haryana