Something New Under the Sun

"John R McNeill is the son of William McNeill, who wrote one of my earlier choices, Plagues and Peoples . He is an environmental historian, and in this book he traces the technological roots of the current global environmental crisis. Namely, the conflict between the growing power of technology on the one hand – abetted by military competition and rising consumer affluence – and the global environment on the other, in which this conflict plays out. For the first time, humans have affected and transformed the global environment. In trying to find the causes of this change, he looks at things like the burning of fossil fuels – which goes back centuries but took off with the invention of automobiles in the 20th century. The growth of cities is also heavily dependent on fossil fuels, and this is another change that has really transformed the global environment. He also looks at things like the use of water in the world – how we are using up our fresh water. We are polluting and wasting it in a way that is unsustainable, and which is likely to lead to water wars in the future. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter McNeill closes by saying that the environmental changes of the last century are on an unprecedented scale, so much so that we can scarcely begin to fathom their implications. We can, however, start to think about them, and McNeill’s book is a helpful primer. He connects, as do most of these other books, changes in technology with changes in the environment. And these are the themes that have been most important in my thinking. I have learnt over the years, by reading these and many other books, to view the world not just as a backdrop for human events but as a participant in them."