Description
Peter Frankopan argues that the usual cast of history — kings, wars, revolutions — has crowded out a bigger story: how climate and environment have repeatedly decided which societies survived and which collapsed. He traces droughts and volcanic eruptions against the fall of the Classic Maya, and the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period against the rise and spread of the Mongol Empire, building a history where the weather gets equal billing with the emperors. It runs over 700 pages and follows his earlier bestseller The Silk Roads in the same sweeping register.
