The Earth Transformed – An Untold History by Peter Frankopan (2023)
The number of books, articles, YouTube clips and movies about climate change and its history, causes and impacts is huge. It can be quite a challenge trying to find quality reliable material that is relatively easy to read. Peter, another Oxford professor, has produced an amazing story that pulls credible material from his vast larder to provide an easy-to-read context that helps explain the situation we are in on planet Earth.
When I purchased this book it was flying off the shelves and for a while it was out of stock, so it is a popular read. While it is a bit of a doorstop at just under 700 pages, it is written in a manner that allows you to skip sections and not lose too much of the thread of climate change history.
I treat it as a resource that captures the main events and processes that have resulted in both long-term and short-term climate change. Food systems and how they have been affected over time provide the main thread throughout the book, and this is of relevance to those of us who work in and with the food and fibre sector.
Patrick Aldwell
December, 2023
