The Earth Turns: An Untold History of Humanity is one of the massive history books covering the history of the earth, humanity and the environment, climate for 4.5 billion years, written by professor of global history at Oxford University - Peter Frankopan.
In Vietnam, Omega Plus published this book, translated by a group of translators Nguyen Linh Chi, Dang Thi Thai Ha, Hoang Thao, and Pham Danh Viet.
The work is a bestseller, and has been copyrighted to 24 countries. The book has been rated as "the best book of summer 2023" by prestigious newspapers such as Financial Times , The Times , The Telegraph , The Hindu , The Week...
Cover of the book "The Earth Turns" (Photo: Omega Plus).
In The Turning Earth: An Untold History of Humanity, Professor Peter Frankopan points out that the natural environment is an important, if not the decisive, factor in human history and in global history.
The book contains a wealth of visual materials, including: 15 maps, 38 valuable color prints, such as images of large-scale settlements from 2,500 years ago - showing how humans were capable of building large cities...
With 24 chapters corresponding to 24 stages, the structure of the book is divided into 3 main parts.
First: Human history and the natural environment
In telling the story of human history, Frankopan highlights the vast geological, cosmic, and underground factors that have created a suitable place for humans to survive.
Humans have only existed for a fraction of the earth's time, and this existence would not have been possible before major changes occurred, including five mass extinction events and the defeat of all other apes.
For most of human history, beginning about 300,000 years ago, humans were able to survive on only small parts of the planet, and were unable to survive long-term under environmental pressures.
Frankopan points out that human prosperity over the past 10,000 years was only possible because the Earth's climate was stable at temperatures that created relatively stable weather patterns and allowed for the cultivation of cereals.
This allowed humans to build cities, trade, create laws—and pay taxes, laying the foundation for recording thoughts and history in writing.
A striking feature of the book is that it shows that from the very beginning humans have realized that our chances of survival are linked to how we treat the natural environment.
The massive history book covers the history of the earth, humanity, and the environment and climate over 4.5 billion years (Photo: Omega Plus).
Second: The Rise and Fall of Empires
Frankopan excels in his use of concise quotes and examples, spanning from South America to South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. More remarkable, however, is the way he shows how climate conditions have helped or hindered human endeavors.
For example, he cites the first 300 years of the Roman Empire's expansion as a period of "unusually low levels of volcanic activity, few extreme weather events, and predictable climate patterns".
This was also a time of stability in the Mississippi basin and in Mesoamerica in the Teotihuacan Valley. But as the weather turned colder and crops failed around 500 BC, the stable empires quickly ran into trouble.
The author does not attempt to attribute the rise and fall of empires solely to climatic conditions, instead explaining how repeated crop failures, floods, or prolonged droughts added stress to already unequal and hierarchical systems.
Third: A lesson that humanity has forgotten
The book clearly demonstrates the importance of climate, environment, and weather patterns in influencing the course of human history.
The work itself successfully brings humans back to the place of our ancestors thousands of years ago, who knew that precarious survival depended on managing our relationship with the environment. It is a lesson that humans seem to have forgotten.
Sometimes all it takes is a major natural disaster, like a meteorite impact or a flood—events that may have been forgotten in the human mind, but have occurred throughout the planet's existence—to turn everything to dust.
The world is constantly shifting, evolving, and changing. From the Big Bang to the present, solar activity, volcanic eruptions, floods, and droughts have shaped natural and human history.
The ways in which humans interact with the Earth have brought great benefits – but often at a cost. As humanity faces an uncertain future, learning the lessons of the past has never been more important.
Historian and writer Peter Frankopan (Photo: The Observer).
"The Earth Turns: An Untold History of Humanity contributes to filling a big gap in the human mindset when we think about the past," commented Dr. Vu Duc Liem.
"What impresses a Vietnamese reader like me is the advanced level of science applied here to provide specific data, sometimes quite detailed, about atmospheric and ocean temperatures, hot and cold weather, rainfall, drought, volcanic activity, glaciers, vegetation, demographics, etc. of regions in each period.
Through that, we look into history and carefully draw conclusions, not the general comments, assumptions, and theories that we still encounter in describing history in familiar ways," translator Nguyen Viet Long shared.
Peter Frankopan , 52, is a British historian and writer. He is professor of global history at Worcester College, Oxford and director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Studies.
Frankopan is one of today's leading historians and is a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Anthropological Society.
His two previous books - Silk Roads: A New History of the World and The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World - were well received by readers and received prestigious awards.
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