so disappointed

I have read other books by theis author with great pleasure but this has been like listening to white noise. I'm sure that the research has been meticulous but is it really scholarly to repeatedly cherry puck random facts to support an argument.and then conclude that maybe something happened because of factor a or factor b or factor c or a combination of these things? I'm so sorry to be negative but this was poor.

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15 people found this helpful

A serious treatment of the subject

It was interesting to hear the author read it as I felt that I could hear his emotion pick up as he covered topics that really mattered to him. Although , as others have said, it might be a challenging listen for some. However, there is very little entertainment in the subject matter and the detail he covers details finely the absolute crisis we now face. I did not see optimism here, only hefty doses of reality. For a good book, I will frequently listen several times and then buy a paper version to annotate and scribble over. This is a good book, but beware as it catalogues how it ends (probably).

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Facts, science and history with a global reach. What’s not to love?

Wasn’t always sold on Frankopan as a narrator but this is as gripping and revelatory as the wonderful silk roads. Far reaching and shattering in some of the insights. As a nurse I particularly enjoyed his discussion of disease and infection.

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Excellent book poor narration

Fabulous book but Peter Frankopan is a way better author than narrator. Five star book one star narration.

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7 people found this helpful

The long lesson of the importance of adaptation

Having read Silk Roads I knew I would be in for a similar epic with The Earth Transformed. The author has a gift for telling stories on a global scale and is pushing that to the limit with this book. I was initially trying to keep track of the shifts and switches between civilisations but found this hard to sustain. This is when I realised it was because I was thinking on too small a scale. This book comes into its own when you widen your conceptual lens and take a truly global view. Settlements, city states and nations are just players on the stage on which this book is set. Examples are not there to tell the story of any one state, empire or peoples, but the wider planetary narrative.
The book is about how the people cope with the story the planet is telling. Humanities fluctuating fortunes when faced with changing climate and environmental conditions is what emerged as the central thread. The imagery of networks and connectivity appears often in the book, time and again these networks were being stress tested by the demands that were placed on it and those that were not able to respond fell, whilst others survived or flourished.
As a history teacher I will now be thinking hard about how to synthesise the messages from this book so that I can put it into my lessons.

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Epic story with an ecological perspective

I have read many books describing the history of man and the planet, but this has extraordinary detail from contemporary research on the major influences from meteors to volcanos to solar flares and of course anthropogenic activity…
The reading style is not polished but that did not affect me in the same way as other commentators.

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Impressive

I don’t agree with the remarks about the narration- nice to hear the author I thought.
Such an enormous scope, and for me much of it new, that it is somewhat overwhelming. I appreciated the fact that he pulls no punches - complacency and overly optimistic “boosterism” will do us no good in the long run.

I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it per se - the message is severe (and rightly so), but I feel much better informed. I would recommend to anyone who wants to be also.

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2 people found this helpful

Challenging, read, important book of utmost relevance

I can’t imagine how hard a task it was to bring together all the source material that goes into the making of a work like this. The Silk Roads was broad enough in scope, but The Earth Transformed addresses climate impact on the whole globe from prehistory to the current day, offering areas of expertise well beyond those normally broached by an historian. Consequently it is hugely ambitious, extremely dense and no easy read, but nevertheless, I highly recommend it. To begin with Frankopan sets out at some considerable length, his purpose in approaching this enormous subject ie the climate crisis, reminding us that it is imperative to understand what has happened before to inform future actions. This manifesto is compelling and it would be worth reading this book for that alone. As with the Silk Roads, the analysis becomes more forensic as we approach the current era and the analysis of hubris of the 20th century, and generally the more recent past, which, together with an analysis of present and future challenges and present and future strategies, is extremely insightful and well expressed. Between the beginning and the end, it is quite hard going, which is hardly surprising given the size of the canvas, but countless times provides fascinating insights into the past completely changing the lens through which we view it. For me this book lends itself well to being listened to rather than read and I also liked that it was read by the author himself. His earnest intentions in this project were apparent. I think this is a very important book.

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2 people found this helpful

A difficult listen

Great material and story, I’m off to buy a hard copy as can’t follow this narration.

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1 person found this helpful

An excellent book

Such a great narration of the story of our beautiful planet and the evolution of humanity, geography, economics and historical fact.
I so much enjoyed listening to this book and will definitely refer back to it time after time.

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1 person found this helpful