The Earth Transformed: An Untold History

Perhaps climatic change fanned problems whose embers were already glowing, but it was the failure to keep the rapacious magnate class under control that was the ultimate cause of the regular crises.

In this age of mounting violence and insecurity, it was perhaps not surprising that ties between villages weakened, communities became introverted and levels of trust plummeted dramatically. Societies atomised and disintegrated, leading to fragmentation that encouraged differentiation along ethnic and other grounds. Research has suggested that these breakdowns developed into long-term issues which are still prevalent today in many parts of West Africa, and explain low levels of co-operation, low levels of trust and poor economic performance.

For example, regions in the Americas that were well suited to cash crops that required intensive farming and benefited from large pools of labour became places with high levels of inequality and limited distribution of rights among the population. Locations better suited to less intensive forms of agricultural production on the other hand - regions that favoured the growing of wheat, for example - proved to be more egalitarian, with better distribution of rights among the population. The short explanation for this is that crops that required lower labour input produced smaller profits and therefore meant there was less to fight over, and more reason to co-operate. This is one of the reasons why it is possible to identify a strong relationship between a country's socio-economic development and its distance from the equator.

18 per cent of total global deaths in 2018 were caused by the effects of fossil-fuel pollution.

Thank you Katarina, Flora, Francis and Luke: you are all a lot older than when I started this book.

Data about the persecution of Jews in Europe drawn from almost a thousand cities between 1100 and 1800 shows that a decrease in the average growing-season temperature of about one-third of 1 degree Celsius is correlated with a rise in the probability of Jews being attacked in the subsequent five-year period – with those living in and near locations with poor soil quality and weaker institutions more likely still to be the victims of violence during times of food shortages and higher prices.

Pliny the Elder, writing not long afterwards, noted sadly that too many people undermine nature with the sole purpose of self-enrichment; it should hardly come as a surprise, therefore, that the earth should occasionally show its displeasure, through disasters such as earthquakes.