The Land Transformed by Peter Frankopan, Review: A Disappointing Continuation of the Silk Road

Man and nature have always been in conflict with each other. In this hefty volume, Peter Frankopan recounts many of the landmark clashes over the centuries, and its subtitle “The Untold Story” alludes to his goal to “bring climate back into history as a fundamental, central, and far more important role.” dominant theme in world history.

Nature usually prevails. He destroyed nations, empires and civilizations, and recent scientific research offers new insights. Frankopan tells us that droughts in Central Asia between AD 350 and 550 drove the nomadic tribes west and played a role in the fall of the Roman Empire. More than a millennium later, the extreme La Niña event may have played a role in the crop failures that fueled the French Revolution.

Frankopan is best known Silk Road, a further reappraisal of the world history of that time from an Eastern point of view. Also, this is the book’s doorway, it has been praised for its new focus and insightful analysis. Unfortunately, this time there is not enough attention.

Because climate is not Frankopan’s only topic. It also studies human intervention in the environment, in particular by causing degradation and pollution. In addition, and even more ambitiously, he wants to expand the entire field of historiography. In addition to expanding his subject again beyond Western interests, he wants to go beyond the cities and give more attention to the countryside, which historians have paid less attention to.

These are all laudable intentions, and once again Frankopan demonstrates an impressive grasp of world history. Unfortunately, the result is a stretched volume with structural deficiencies. His trio of skates are often sidelined, constantly vying for the reader’s attention.

There is also a problem with Frankopan’s basic idea. Climate has not been overlooked as a historical issue. Droughts, floods, storms, earthquakes and eruptions have always been important to historians. Frankly, a distinction is made between climate events and their effects on the one hand, and long-term climate change on the other. However, the rise of geology and other climate-related sciences since the 19th century has led many historians to study the human consequences of long periods of climate change. Frankopan’s claim that climate is neglected by historians is odd.

Where the earth has changed Most powerful is the detailed description of how human destruction of the environment is steadily worsening. They become shocking when he gets to the Victorian era and describes how the poisonous combinations of industrialization and colonialism began to wreak widespread havoc.

Also disturbing are his stories of past climate change that has endangered humanity. The current climate crisis is unique in its human-caused and global scope, putting much of the world’s population at risk. Nevertheless, as Frankopan ably demonstrates, we had many localized progenitors.

Debate continues about the exact combinations of climate change and environmental damage, in addition to the political miscalculations behind many of these failures. They range from the end of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia around 2200 B.C. to the dramatic decline of the Maya civilization around the 9th century. Also of note is the abandonment of the city of Cahokia in North America in the 14th century.

Like climate, this question has always interested historians. “Ever since written sources exist,” Frankopan recalls, “people have been concerned about man’s relationship with nature, warning of the dangers of overexploitation of resources and long-term damage to the environment.” warning .