Until two weeks ago, Humboldt was one of several famous past scholars I only knew by name. Last month’s release of this short biography was the perfect opportunity to fill this knowledge gap, so I sat down to compare it with Andrea Wulf’s The Invention of Nature, which received widespread acclaim ten years ago. Historian Andreas W. Daum shows that good things come in small packages and delivers a factual, nuanced, and admirably concise biography. It also confirmed that reading two biographies back-to-back is a rewarding and instructive exercise. This, then, is the second of a two-part review of the long and remarkable life of Prussian naturalist, scholar, and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt: A Concise Biography, written by Andreas W. Daum, published by Princeton University Press in January 2025 (hardback, 208 pages)

Straight off the bat, you can tell that this will be a different book. First is its size: at 208 pages and measuring some 13 × 21 cm, it is swallowed by The Invention of Nature. Second, though Wulf moved to Germany as a child and is thus equally comfortable parsing German sources, Daum is just that bit more qualified: he is a historian actively researching Humboldt’s biography. Currently based at the University at Buffalo, New York, he was born, raised, and educated in Germany. This book was originally published in German in 2019 by Verlag C.H.Beck, titled simply Alexander von Humboldt. The English translation is by Robert Savage, with Daum actively involved in revising and expanding it while directly translating quotations from German and French to retain their original meaning.

A more detailed comparison between the two biographies follows at the end as I first want to judge this book on its merits. Daum discusses Humboldt’s life in six chapters that (chiefly) cover his childhood and education, his work as a mining inspector and his early publications, his famous expedition through America, his twenty-year stay in Paris, his return to Berlin and journey to Russia, and his final two decades during which Kosmos became the focus of his life. A short interlude chapter reflects on his scientific approach, while the book ends with a chronology (3 pp.), a very useful narrative guide to sources and further reading (9 pp.), endnotes (13 pp.), and a selected bibliography (6 pp.). As mentioned in my previous review, biographies are more than statements of facts, with different writers emphasizing different aspects. Daum has a clear mission statement: to examine Humboldt’s life “through a refined biographical lens [that] avoids both mystification and vilification [and] to suggest a more nuanced interpretation, portraying a multifaceted Humboldt” (p. 3). Two aspects stood out to me.

First, throughout, Daum pushes back on previous portrayals of Humboldt. For example, after acknowledging Nicolaas A. Rupke’s fine analysis of previous biographies, Daum characterises the recent biographies by Wulf and Maren Meinhardt as “popular, heroic accounts” (p. 162) that tend to portray Humboldt as “a singular intellect way ahead of his time” (p. 2). He adds a clear barb at Wulf’s address by writing that Humboldt did not invent nature. He equally objects to linguist Mary Louise Pratt’s postcolonial critique of Humboldt as a gentleman colonizer who “saw non-European worlds primarily with ‘imperial eyes’” (p. 3). Though Daum agrees such criticism is “a necessary corrective to an idealized, glorifying image of the Prussian explorer” (p. 63), it needs to be combined with a fair assessment of his progressive sides. Portrayals of Humboldt as a second Columbus are similarly scorned as “simplistic tropes [that] reflect a colonial worldview” and simply are not true: “Humboldt was not venturing into unknown territory. Nowhere was he the ‘first’” (p. 55). This is true for both the American expedition and his later trip to Russia: naturalists in Estonia had already laid a scientific basis for Russia’s eastward expansion, and Humboldt was not the first researcher to travel here.

“Daum has a clear mission statement: to examine Humboldt’s life “through a refined biographical lens [that] avoids both mystification and vilification” (p. 3)”

More pushback comes when Daum distinguishes between Humboldtian science and Humboldt’s science. Humboldt’s call for systematic collection of geomagnetic and climatological data by networks of observatories, later pursued by both Russia and the UK, has been called an example of Humboldtian science by historian Susan Faye Cannon. Daum counters that this is a later archetype that “drew on Humboldt and his ideal of systematic measurements and quantification but jettisoned his emphasis on the aesthetic” (p. 124). Humboldt’s science, in contrast, was far more tentative, trying to balance empirical science with one’s subjective experience of nature. He did not have it all figured out before or after his American expedition. To suggest otherwise is “a retrospective projection that doesn’t do justice to his ongoing struggle to collect and generate knowledge” (p. 52). Finally, though Humboldt is venerated in South America and he welcomed declarations of independence, he played no role in them: “the label ‘father of Latin American independence’ is an […] ahistorical, heroizing trope” (p. 109).

Beyond criticism, the second aspect that stood out to me is Daum’s nuanced picture of Humboldt. Take, for example, his political stance, or lack thereof. Though Humboldt is remembered for his liberal values and criticism of colonialism and slavery, he feared bloody violence, such as seen during the French Revolution and favoured more gradual reforms. When Prussia took the fight to Napoleon and occupied Paris in 1814, his brother Wilhelm supported the German cause while Alexander refused to, “souring relations between the two” (p. 105). Humboldt helped prevent the Paris Museum of Natural History from being looted and drew criticism back in Germany when lobbying for stolen German artworks to stay in Paris. He supported and found patronage for French and German scientists alike and, by refusing to pick sides, easily moved in different social circles. When he later returned to Berlin with its increasingly conservative political climate that curbed freedom of expression, he swam against the tide by offering free public lectures that became incredibly popular.

Daum gives a similarly nuanced picture of Humboldt’s way of working. Hearing of his grand plans for the American expedition, his brother was already concerned he would overreach. Indeed, he habitually bit off more than he could chew, always had multiple manuscripts on the go, and left a legacy of unfinished projects. The American travel narrative, between various translations and abridgments, became “so fiendishly complicated […] it still has the power to drive experts, librarians, and readers to despair” (p. 99) and resembled “a construction site of knowledge” (p. 100). Kosmos, the magnum opus he laboured on for the last two decades of his life, was not necessarily a resounding success either, despite the high sales. Some contemporaries called it a challenging work, while others mentioned many readers put it down as it required too much prior knowledge. Ironically, the proliferation of simplified versions and explainers meant that Humboldt succeeded, sort of, in popularizing science, though it “had taken on a momentum that the author could no longer control” (p. 142). Daum’s characterisation of Kosmos as “more a synopsis of a mass of materials than a coherently argued synthesis” (p. 141) is exhibit A for his conclusion that Humboldt is remembered not for coming up with “a clearly defined theory that fundamentally changed scientific and social thinking“, but for leaving us with “myriad complex thoughts and incentives for further research” (p. 151).

“The book’s brevity is partially achieved by omitting all the biographical material on other people that Wulf included and partially by mentioning rather than describing events in lively detail.”

Given the number of people who will have read Wulf’s The Invention of Nature, a comparison is in order. My one-liner is that Daum’s book is less fluff, more facts. The book’s brevity is partially achieved by omitting all the biographical material on other people that Wulf included and partially by mentioning rather than describing events in lively detail. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to Humboldt’s expeditions. For example, where Wulf detailed his quest to find the Casiquiare river to establish whether the Orinoco and Amazon river basins were linked, Daum mentions this in a single sentence. In the process, he misses a beat as it is another good example of Humboldt not being “first”: Wulf mentions how local missionaries told him it had been figured out decades earlier. His travel partner in the Americas, Aimé Bonpland, is basically invisible, and there is virtually nothing about their working relationship or Humboldt’s later frustrations about his tardiness in writing up the botanical volumes beyond mention that “the less efficient” (p. 102) Bonpland was replaced by Carl Sigismund Kunth. And where Wulf cracked me up with her description of Humboldt’s audacious unscheduled detours in Russia, Daum merely mentions that he presented his hosts with a “fait accompli” (p. 122).

Now, before you conclude that Daum’s book contains less material than Wulf’s, let me stop you there. For all its brevity, there are numerous details here not mentioned by Wulf. Humboldt grew up speaking French. He had a half-brother, Heinrich von Holwede, who remains a complete enigma. He witnessed a solar eclipse while in today’s Venezuela. But beyond factoids, there are the aspects I highlighted above (the corrections to previous depictions of Humboldt, his political stance, his approach to work); there is attention for his lesser-known works; a more informed opinion on his sexuality; and many other things besides. In a mere 153 pages, Daum concisely offers a full yet nuanced picture of Humboldt’s life and work.

If you have already read The Invention of Nature, should you read this biography? Next to being a quick read, hopefully by now you are convinced Daum’s book is worth your time by offering a different perspective and much new information. If you have the bandwidth and inclination, I would even recommend you either reread Wulf’s book or, if you have not yet done so, read them together—I found the exercise both instructive and rewarding. If you insist on me recommending just one book, answer me this: do you read history books to be informed or to be entertained? In the former case, choose Daum for a more scholarly take; in the latter, choose Wulf for an entertaining book that indulges in digressions. I hasten to add that I am talking shades of grey here: Daum prioritising the facts does not mean his book is boring, just as Wulf prioritising storytelling does not mean her book is inaccurate.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Alexander von Humboldt

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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There are many famous scholars that I only know by name, so, lately, I have been developing a taste for science biographies. With the publication last month of Alexander von Humboldt: A Concise Biography, he was the next scholar to come onto my radar. However, I felt I could not do this subject justice without also considering Andrea Wulf’s highly-regarded 2015 biography The Invention of Nature, which won a slew of prizes and nominations. This, then, is the first of a two-part review of the long and remarkable life of Prussian naturalist, scholar, and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science, written by Andrea Wulf, published by John Murray in October 2015 (hardback, 473 pages)

You may well ask: why bother, why read two biographies? Is that not simply repetitive? I have several answers to these questions. The prosaic one is that I bought a copy some years ago, did not yet get around to reading it, and have heard good things about it. More importantly, however, is that the amount of scholarship on any topic or person is often dizzying (as is the case here) and taking any one person’s word as the final say is foolhardy. Yes, there will be inevitable repetition, but biographies are more than statements of facts. Each biographer will write for different audiences and approach their subject differently, accentuating some sides while downplaying others. People are complicated and multifaceted, so developing a fuller picture of someone is an iterative process. My thinking on this is hardly original. Science historian Nicolaas A. Rupke did just such a comparative exercise back in 2005, writing a “metabiography” that showed how the many different Humboldt biographies are products of their time that reveal as much about their writers as about their subject. In that light, consider the biographies I recommend below as starting points only!

Born in Prussia (today’s Germany did not yet exist), Alexander von Humboldt (1769—1859) was born to a wealthy family as the younger of two sons. Age 9 his father died, age 27 his mother. Liberated from their vision of a conventional career (he had trained as a mining inspector), and now in possession of a large inheritance, he pursued what he is best remembered for: a five-year exploration of the Americas (1799–1804). In true polymath fashion, he ranged across disciplines, collecting observations on, amongst others, zoology, botany, geography, history, agriculture, and politics. He spent two decades in Paris, turned his journey into influential books, including the hugely popular Views of Nature, and became an intellectual rock star. All the while he was supported by the Prussian king Wilhelm Friedrich III on a generous chamberlain’s pension, no strings attached; until of course there were and he was recalled to Berlin in 1827. Though his plans to explore the Himalayas never came to fruition, he remained ever-restless and, age 59, convinced tsar Nicholas I to finance a journey across Russia. Returning to Berlin with yet more ideas and observations, he continued writing and lecturing and, age 65, hit on the madcap idea to write a book, Kosmos, that would represent the whole material world. Taking a decade to complete, it became a bestseller. Realising he had yet more to say, it spawned four follow-up volumes^[1] that consumed the remainder of his life until his death age 89.

Above facts are remarkable enough, and Wulf follows a strategy of taking notable episodes from his life and elaborating on them in lively detail in this chunky, 473-page book. But, given that I just wrote that biographies are more than statements of facts, I want to highlight three noticeable aspects.

“His journey through Russia in old age was a revitalizing experience, especially once he defied the authorities by going off-piste in a well-told episode that had me pealing with laughter at his audacity.”

First is Humboldt’s character. Wulf does not have to psychoanalyse him as his contemporaries already did some of that. Correspondence between his brother Wilhelm and his brother’s wife Caroline explains Alexander’s unhappy childhood. The early loss of his father saw him search for a replacement in his private tutors while he felt incompetent compared to his precocious older brother. His mother was emotionally distant and though Wilhelm took care of her for 15 months when she fell terminally ill, neither brother chose to be there when she died or attend the funeral. All this meant Humboldt was haunted by feelings of insecurity his whole life. He was forever possessed of wanderlust, desiring strongly to travel and explore. His journey through Russia in old age was a revitalizing experience, especially once he defied the authorities by going off-piste in a well-told episode that had me pealing with laughter at his audacity. He was notoriously restless and talked at “race-horse speed” (p. 19, quoting Caroline), jumping from subject to subject. Both German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and American President Thomas Jefferson wrote they learned more from talking to Humboldt for several hours than from reading books for several years. It does feel like he transitions from a young man dazzling his audience at salons with his eloquence to an old man lecturing them—the piano recital episode Wulf recounts is comically embarrassing. He generously supported other scholars, explorers, and artists but was hopeless with money—Caroline feared some took advantage of him. He never married, nor had romantic affairs with women, though he had plenty of suitors. Instead, he developed intense friendships with other men in serial fashion, declaring passionate feelings for them in his letters. Wulf adds that: “Humboldt never explicitly explained the nature of these male friendships but it’s likely that they remained platonic” (p. 83). Rather, he let off steam by venturing into nature and exerting himself physically: “nature, he declared, calmed the ‘wild urges of passions’” (p. 83).

The second noteworthy facet is Humboldt’s prescience. Wulf repeatedly argues he was visionary and far ahead of his time. This showed in his political views: he spoke out against slavery his whole life and was supportive of revolutions against oppressive regimes, though he ultimately tired of politics as many revolutions came to nought. It especially showed in his scientific ideas. His ascent of Mount Chimborazo in today’s Ecuador is credited with giving him the insight that everything in nature is connected, “conceiving a bold new vision […] that still influences the way that we understand the natural world” (p. 2). At a time when botany was all about taxonomy, he saw connections with climate and geography and grouped plants into vegetation zones, giving “western science a new lens through which to view the natural world” (p. 127). As Humboldt collated more data, plants to him “revealed a global force behind nature” (p. 128), whether indicating past human migrations or the movement of landmasses (prefiguring plate tectonics by more than a century). “No one had ever approached botany in this way” (p. 128). Observing Spanish colonial practices, he warned that deforestation and irrigation could affect the climate. Decades later, having visited Russia, he reiterated this and almost prophetically added a warning about “the ‘great masses of steam and gas’ produced in the industrial centres” (p. 213). Seeing the impacts of other forms of resource extraction, he connected the dots and warned that: “The action of humankind across the globe […] could affect future generations” (p. 58). And with that, Wulf concludes, “he unwittingly became the father of the environmental movement” (p. 58). As will become apparent in the next review, not everyone agrees with sweeping statements of this sort.

“Using a show-don’t-tell approach, Wulf does not merely tell us Humboldt was influential, she shows us how their diaries, letters, and books explicitly mentioned him.”

The third noteworthy facet is Humboldt’s influence. Eight out of the book’s 23 chapters discuss famous people he influenced, which break down into two distinct groups. The first group were close friends to the young Humboldt, such as Goethe, Simón Bolívar, and Jefferson (they only met in person for a few weeks and then corresponded for years). Thus, these chapters are as much about them as about Humboldt^[2]. While I can get behind her decision to detail these three, I struggled more with the second group. These people were younger than Humboldt and (except Charles Darwin) never met him, making these chapters mini-biographies of other people. Using a show-don’t-tell approach, Wulf does not merely tell us Humboldt was influential, she shows us how their diaries, letters, and books explicitly mentioned him, and how their personal libraries were stocked with his books. It is easily the most divisive aspect of the book. On the one hand, I felt it reiterated the theme of connectedness: just as his ideas were all about the connections in nature, Humboldt himself was deeply interconnected with others, influencing and being influenced by them. On the other hand, the end of the book started to feel like too many tangents. Humboldt’s death in chapter 20 is preceded by two chapters on Darwin’s Beagle expedition and Henry David Thoreau, and followed by another three on George Perkins Marsh, Ernst Haeckel, and John Muir. After finishing the book I had to remind myself I was reading a biography of Humboldt.

I furthermore want to give Wulf props for the endnotes. She opens with four pages of abbreviations to all the sources she has consulted: correspondence, letters, notebooks, and diaries held in library collections, plus Humboldt’s numerous books. This in turn allows her to then give you—ye gods!—82 pages of condensed endnotes. These meticulously document everything, often providing 5–10 endnotes per page of text. It evidences an impressive amount of background research and you would be hard-pressed to accuse her of making unsubstantiated claims.

Overall, despite its digressions, I found The Invention of Nature a hugely enjoyable book that gives a multifaceted portrait of Humboldt’s character, his ideas, and his impact. Wulf presents her in-depth research in a captivating narrative, and it is easy to see why the book received so many accolades. As the next review shows, some cast doubt on the claim that Humboldt was the inventor of nature, but Wulf convinces that this ever-restless polymath certainly was a force of nature. Acknowledging my opening gambit that we should not take any one biography as the final say on the matter, let us next fast forward ten years to Andreas W. Daum’s Alexander von Humboldt: A Concise Biography to see what he adds.

1. ? The first two volumes of Kosmos were intended for a general audience and saw many translations; the later three volumes were more specialist and less popular. Johns Hopkins University Press reissued the 1858–1859 English translations of volume 1 and volume 2 in 1997. A (rather lush) integral edition of all volumes with commentary is currently only available in German.

2. ? Interestingly, botanist Aimé Bonpland, his research partner on the American expedition, receives little attention from Wulf.

The Invention of Nature

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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When seeing the world through a deep-time lens, no landscape feature is permanent. The Sahara, for example, “only” came into existence some 7 million years ago. In that time, it has not always been the parched desert it is now but has been green and verdant numerous times, crisscrossed by rivers and home to hippos, turtles, fish and other animals and plants typical of wetter climes. In this book, retired earth scientist Martin Williams draws on a long lifetime of research and desert expeditions to give a very accessible introduction to the surprisingly complex geography of the Sahara, answering some very basic questions.

When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be, written by Martin Williams, published by Princeton University Press in November 2021 (hardback, 238 pages)

I first came across the notion of the Sahara not being a permanent barrier to animal and plant migrations in Ancient Bones. That book mentions how both desert and savannah ecosystems were in flux over time. Williams here provides an introduction for the general reader to both the deep and recent history of the Sahara, explaining how it was able to support such vibrant life, when and how it dried out, and whether humans are to blame. Next to scientific literature spanning about a century, he draws heavily on his two more technical books with Cambridge University Press, Climate Change in Deserts and The Nile Basin.

When the Sahara Was Green shines on the geography and geomorphology front, which are Williams’s home turf. He makes accessible what might otherwise have been, sorry, dry topics. This takes you through the deep history of the formation and dissolution of the supercontinent Gondwana, ancient glaciations, and the impact of the very old basement rock that underlies Africa and still impacts what happens at the surface. Williams explains the geological and climatological reasons why the Sahara has become a desert. The obvious reason is plate tectonics. North Africa moved into the latitudinal zone where large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns pretty much dictate a dry climate. Beyond that, however, many other particularities have enhanced its aridity over the last ~7 million years. For example, the sheer size of the continent means inbound winds lose moisture before reaching its heart, the presence of mountains creates rain shadows, and more distant influences include overall global cooling in the last 33 million years after Antarctica became an isolated continent.

And yet, as Williams has observed first-hand in the field, there were wetter intervals during this timespan. The reasons why these happened are not always necessarily clear, but the evidence is: fossil soils, lake sediments that are now literally weathering out of the landscape in inverted relief, infilled river channels showing up on satellite and radar images, vertebrate and invertebrate fossils, remnant populations of e.g. monkeys living in mountain sanctuaries, remains of human habitation such as cemeteries, rock art, and artefacts… these are some of the many independent lines of evidence discussed here. The resulting narrative jumps back and forth in time between deep time (ten to hundreds of millions of years) and the most recent twenty-thousand years when the Sahara went from wetter to drier.

“Why did the Sahara become a desert? The obvious reason is plate tectonics. Beyond that, however, many other particularities have enhanced its aridity over the last ~7 million years.”

Now, the Sahara is not just a sand pit; four-fifths of it is something else. Even so, there is no getting away from sand and thus sand, sand dunes, and sand storms all get a prominent look in. This shows the deep-time connections and surprising complexity of today’s environment. Where does all this sand come from? Surprisingly, rivers that over millions of years dumped their sediment loads, especially as the Sahara started becoming drier and rivers did not reach the ocean anymore. But also from mountains with soft, easily eroded mantles. These are the legacy of being chemically weathered by rainforests that grew there tens of millions of years ago. And where does all this sand go? Sand, together with dust from other parts of the Sahara, blows all the way across the Atlantic. Because it is rich in organic compounds—leftovers from former lake beds and river sediments—it fertilises the Amazon rainforest. In fact, there are four main dust trajectories in operation over the Sahara today, blowing dust towards different continents.

When the Sahara Was Green is richly illustrated with a colour plate section, figures reproduced from books and papers, hand-drawn diagrams, and, my favourite, illustrated endpapers. Two maps show countries and names of the numerous landmarks discussed in the book. I referred to them often.

As much as the geography and geomorphology part of the book is interesting and well-informed, the book falls a bit short elsewhere. The section on human evolution is rather brief, focusing on discoveries in the Middle Awash Valley in Ethiopia, such as the famous Australopithecus fossil nicknamed Lucy and the Ardipithecus fossils Tim White and his team worked on. Graecopithecus is only mentioned in the context of the Saharan desert dust deposit it was found in in Greece. This fossil discovery was described in Ancient Bones where the idea was floated that the drying up of the Mediterranean Sea—the Messinian Salinity Crisis, an event William mentions separately—allowed the migration of animals and plants between Africa and Europe. How climate interacted with human evolution is thus not really discussed. The chapter that mentions desert adaptations in plants, animals, and humans borders on the anecdotal, giving a select few examples only. And one of the questions that is prominently asked in the beginning—Will the Sahara become green again in the future?—is answered with a brief “yes, but not for a long time” (p. 180) without further explanation. We have a reasonable idea of the near-future course of the tectonic plates, so Williams’s answer invites a new why-question that unfortunately goes unanswered.

“Did humans cause the Sahara to dry up? His answer is a strident “no!” […] “the Sahara is dry today for good and sufficient geographical reasons that have nothing to do with humans“.”

Much of this book is factual and Williams only sparingly inserts personal anecdotes. Instead, he reserves his voice for a different question. Did humans cause the Sahara to dry up? His answer is a strident “no!”: the birth of the Sahara happened well before our ancestors could have had any impact, while claims that historical overgrazing by pastoralists caused the Sahara to become arid again ~5000 years ago are equally unhelpful. He calls it an “oddly myopic view” and “sadly deluded notion” (p. 143) and notably attacks Paul and Anne Ehrlich, even though they allow for both human and climatic factors. Williams leans toward pinning it entirely on natural factors, “the Sahara is dry today for good and sufficient geographical reasons that have nothing to do with humans” (pp. 144–145) but admits that there are recent examples where human actions have certainly not helped. My takeaway from this is that I think he is right where deep time is concerned (a similar argument was made in The Sloth Lemur’s Song regarding humans and deforestation in Madagascar), though with our current population size it seems entirely within our power to make things worse. It is hard to disagree with his warnings that we need both long-term data to establish genuine trends (a high degree of climatic variation is entirely normal in the Sahara) and must reckon with local variability (the Sahara is simply too large to make sweeping generalisations).

Given Williams’s deep well of knowledge, this book could have been bogged down by technicalities and jargon. Instead, When the Sahara Was Green is admirably accessible to a broad audience with only basic knowledge of geography and earth sciences. Furthermore, the book stands out for the numerous clear and well-designed illustrations that explain complex concepts.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

When the Sahara Was Green

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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Normally the sight of photovoltaic panels and wind turbines fills me with hope, but I have my doubts after reading this book. Many politicians, business leaders, and environmental organisations argue that we need to invest in renewables to transition away from fossil fuels and the accompanying carbon dioxide emissions. What is rarely mentioned is that these technologies require the mining of rare metals: chemical elements such as rhenium, lithium, antimony, neodymium, tantalum, and many others that most people have barely heard of. In The Rare Metals War, French investigative journalist Guillaume Pitron sounds the alarm, showing both the environmental impact and China’s chokehold on the market.

I read this book in tandem with David S. Abraham’s slightly older The Elements of Power which I had been meaning to read for ages. Thus, this is the second of a two-part review dealing with these little-known elements that have silently come to dominate our lives.

The Rare Metals War: The Dark Side of Clean Energy and Digital Technologies, written by Guillaume Pitron, published by Scribe Publications in January 2021 (paperback, 263 pages)

This book was originally published in French in 2018 as La Guerre des Métaux Rares and was swiftly translated into eight languages. Although the publisher does not mention it, the English version has been updated, referencing events and reports up to 2019. Bianca Jacobsohn‘s excellent translation perfectly captures the urgency of the alarm that Pitron sounds.

After a brief introduction to the nature and numerous applications of rare metals, the first three chapters tackle pollution. Pitron surreptitiously visits major mining sites in China and Mongolia to see first-hand the destruction: the vast toxic sludge ponds that leach metals into the groundwater, the poisoned agricultural land, the villages where people suffer and die from pollution-inflicted diseases. “The Chinese people have sacrificed their environment to supply the entire planet with rare earths” (p. 28), says a Chinese rare-metal expert. And it is not just China, pollution accompanies the mining for cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, chrome in Kazakhstan, and lithium in Latin America.

“It is all too easy to forget that our online world requires a huge infrastructure of data centres, cables, satellites, etc. requiring rare metals: “[…] the age of dematerialisation is nothing more than an outright ruse“”

What makes this so shocking is that this pollution is not spoken of in the West. Pitron is intent on opening your eyes and does not mince his words. “[…] in contrast to the carbon economy, whose pollution is undeniable, the new green economy hides behind virtuous claims of responsibility for the sake of future generations” (p. 54). It is all too easy to forget that our online world requires a huge infrastructure of data centres, cables, satellites, etc. requiring rare metals: “[…] the age of dematerialisation is nothing more than an outright ruse” (p. 44). It is even worse for renewable energy: “Put simply, clean energy is a dirty affair. Yet we feign ignorance because we refuse to take stock of the end-to-end production cycle of wind turbines and solar panels” (p. 53). And then on page 72, his coup de grâce: “Concealing the dubious origins of metals in China has given green and digital technologies the shining reputation they enjoy. This could very well be the most stunning greenwashing operation in history.“

Bowyer already highlighted this hypocritical contradiction in our attitude in The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise. Pitron here calls it “delocalised pollution”. While China does “the dirty work of manufacturing green-tech components“, the West happily buys “the pristine product while flaunting its sound ecological practices” (p. 71). He reminds us that: “everything comes at a cost: the globalisation of supply chains gives us consumer goods while taking away knowledge of their origins” (p. 81). For me, this part of the book was worth the price of admission alone, and it might come as a rude but necessary awakening for some readers.

“Concealing the dubious origins of metals in China has given green and digital technologies the shining reputation they enjoy. This could very well be the most stunning greenwashing operation in history”

The next four chapters tackle the second major topic of this book: the near-monopoly China now has on the supply of many rare metals. Pitron traces the history of how Europe and the US shuttered its rare metal mines, off-shored its heavy industries, and focused on high-value manufacturing with imported components and the service economy. China used this opportunity to the fullest and has come to dominate the production of many raw materials, including the rare earth elements so critical for high-tech applications. But that is only their first step towards becoming a global powerhouse, as their 2010 rare earth export quotas made clear. Companies are of course welcome to relocate their production to China, and many have done so to remain competitive. Though the west has cried foul, Pitron avoids anti-China sentiments by providing their perspective. At a conference, a Mongolian official clarifies that “Western businesses that, like the colonisers before them, sought only to mine resources to generate added value back home are no longer welcome” (p. 110). I could not help but think: can you blame them?

Our appetite for rare metals is rapidly growing and Pitron highlights that some could run out within decades. Mention of “peak anything” easily attracts derision, but I agree with him that we are in “collective denial of resource scarcity” (p. 162). Logically, we have used up the most rewarding and easily accessible resources first, so we mine and drill in ever more extreme environments, including plans to mine asteroids and . Bonus points for Pitron for mentioning the underappreciated concept of energy returned on energy invested that Ugo Bardi highlighted in Extracted. Producing energy costs energy. As long as there is a net gain, all is well, but ore grades (the concentration of desired material) have been in decline for decades. “[…] As Bardi concludes, ‘The limits to mineral extraction are not limits of quantity; they are limits of energy’” (p. 165).

“it is hard to argue with [Pitron’s] conclusion that “nothing will change so long as we do not experience, in our own backyards, the full cost of attaining our standard of happiness“”

Pitron’s proposed solution is unusual, but I like it. Reopen mines in the West. Not just to compete with China, but to make consumers “realise—to our horror—the true cost of our self-declared modern, connected, and green world” (p. 177). He hopes that this will finally move us to dial down our consumption. And it is hard to argue with his conclusion that “nothing will change so long as we do not experience, in our own backyards, the full cost of attaining our standard of happiness” (p. 178).

The Rare Metals War is a powerful and sobering exposé that will no doubt shatter the green dreams of many readers. However, we cannot continue to ignore the material reality that underlies the green revolution that politicians and environmental organisations want us to pursue. This book is a much-needed conversation starter.

So, how does it compare to Abraham’s The Elements of Power? I considered the former to be remarkably comprehensive: it covers pollution and China’s monopoly, and several other topics besides. And yet, its tone is more neutral and might not set alarm bells ringing. Abraham seems concerned but optimistic about the promise of green technology. Maybe it is something about the French, but Pitron is much more outspoken by calling out our collective hypocrisy in the West and suggesting we act on the root problem of overconsumption. If Abraham informs you widely, Pitron wakes you up—I found both takes on this topic very useful and recommend both books highly.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

The Rare Metals War

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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7-minute read

Tantalum, tellurium, indium, niobium, germanium, dysprosium, rhenium, yttrium, neodymium, titanium, lithium, tungsten, cobalt. These are but some of the many chemical elements that are collectively known as rare metals. You will probably recognize only a few of them, but trace quantities are in products and structures all around you, making things stronger, faster, and lighter. They are used to make smartphones, laptops, and fibre-optic cables; but also cars, airplanes, and military weapon systems; and even photovoltaic panels and wind turbines. We live in the Rare Metal Age, writes natural resources strategist David S. Abraham here.

I have been meaning to read this book for ages. With the recent publication of Guillaume Pitron’s The Rare Metals War, now is the right time. Thus, this is the first of a two-part review dealing with these little-known elements that have silently come to dominate our lives.

The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age, written by David S. Abraham, published by Yale University Press in June 2017 (paperback, 319 pages)

Before proceeding, about that name, rare metals. Also known as minor metals, it is a blanket term that includes rare earth elements. And though metallurgists cannot agree on a definition, the Minor Metals Trade Association currently recognizes 49 metals, encompassing pretty much everything that is not a base (e.g. iron or copper) or precious metal (e.g. gold or silver). The rarity can refer to their limited consumption (hundreds vs. millions of tons annually), but also their geological occurrence. Some are scarce, while others are plentiful but so dilute that they rarely can be mined profitably.

Nomenclature aside, there are many reasons why rare metals are exceptional, unpredictable, and troublesome. The Elements of Power explores numerous facets of our use of them, and I found this book to be remarkably balanced and comprehensive in its coverage.

First off, simply developing a mine is not straightforward. Their geology means there are only limited places where a metal can be profitably mined, allowing a few countries or companies to monopolise the world’s supply. This leads to geopolitical tensions, and when China restricted rare earth exports in 2010, it rattled industries around the world.

“Every mineral vein is different and optimising the production process can take years of trial and error.”

Furthermore, extraction and purification are expensive and “[m]any rare metals are so technically challenging for chemists to produce that it is better to think of them as chemical creations rather than geological minerals” (p. 69). Every mineral vein is different and optimising the production process can take years of trial and error. Several decades can pass between a mining company finding willing investors and producing metals. There is no cookbook you can turn to. Well, there is, but even so, a lot of knowledge is hard-earned and jealously guarded. And with rare metal specialists a dying breed due to the lack of dedicated university departments in Europe and the US, there has been a brain-drain towards Asia.

Then there is the lack of openness in the trading sector. Commodity traders are already a shady bunch, but as Abraham’s interviews with anonymous sources reveal, this sector is “a web of small companies of specialty traders“, with materials having to travel “through a murky network of traders, processors, and component manufacturers” (p. 90). There are no exchanges such as for oil with accepted benchmark prices. Business is very much about who you know—backroom deals, smuggling, and distrust are rife. “No one really knows the true size of these markets. Even the U.S. Geological Survey […] won’t hazard a guess […]” (p. 91). And given that many rare metals are recovered as by-products of other mining activities, there is no neat supply-and-demand relationship, resulting in volatile prices.

The economic side of rare metals is, in short, complex. And that is a problem, as we use much. Abraham gives numerous examples of their use in our gadgets, cars, airplanes, and weapons. The iPhone “relies on nearly half the elements on the planet” (p. 2), while “the newest weapon systems like the F-35 are flying periodic tables” (p. 168). And we will need even more in the future for green technologies: for the magnets in wind turbines and the batteries in electric cars. Once Abraham works through these examples, you realise that these technologies are anything but “green”.

“[…] we will need even more [rare metals] in the future for green technologies: for the magnets in wind turbines and the batteries in electric cars. Once Abraham works through these examples, you realise that these technologies are anything but “green””

Mining in general “[…] speeds up otherwise relatively benign natural processes that usually occur over millennia […] (p. 180). Some have even called it planetary plunder. But rare-metal mining is even more taxing on the environment. Abraham describes the different refining steps—the crushing of rock, the leaching of ores using strong acids—highlighting how energy-intensive and polluting these practices are. And in case you are wondering, recycling “[…] is not a panacea. It too has its own environmental consequences […]” (p. 177). Next to the challenges of gathering the waste and getting people to recycle rather than discard, separating complex devices back into their component elements is no less energy-intensive and polluting. An important point Abraham makes is that “the combination of metals in products like batteries and even steel are in far more complex alloys than the finite set found in nature” (p. 190). Often, whether recycling is even possible has simply not been studied yet.

If rare metals are so problematic, can we not just swap one metal for another? The answer is no, but outside material scientists, few understand the subtleties. The performance we now routinely demand from our technology is such that we cannot simply substitute one metal for another without sacrificing performance, affordability, structural integrity, or weight. And what is true of weapons, “[w]ithout some of these minor metals you would have to go back to 1960s or 1970s performance” (p. 166), holds for most applications.

“The performance we now routinely demand from our technology is such that we cannot simply substitute one metal for another without sacrificing performance, affordability, structural integrity, or weight.”

The combination of few mines, opaque and complex supply chains, and the booming demand for these metals makes for a very uncertain future that has analysts and governments concerned. Demand is likely to outstrip supply, at least in the short term: “[…] we could be condemned to a fossil fuel world, if we cannot bolster the rare metal supply lines we need to support our green technologies” (p. 136), warns Abraham. When even the former CEO of mining giant Vale is quoted as saying “[t]he reality is the planet is very small for the number of inhabitants we will see in 2025” (p. 219), I cannot help but wonder how much of this an endless rat race of techno-fixes that are doomed to fail. Nevertheless, Abraham’s envisioned solution is not to shy away from using them but to double down: “to search for more sources, use them more efficiently, and advance our knowledge of geology, metallurgy, and material science” (p. 219).

The Elements of Power tackles this topic from many angles, and Abraham is a knowledgeable guide, not least because of his insider perspective of what is happening in China and Japan. This book was everything I hoped for and provided numerous “aha” moments. If you want to better understand what the deal is with rare metals, this book comes highly recommended.

Can Pitron add to this? I will turn to The Rare Metals War next to find out, but, spoiler alert, the answer is yes. Foremost, Pitron will give you reason to pause and question the cost of the transition to green technologies.

The Elements of Power

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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I will happily shoehorn a Monty Python reference into any conversation, but in this case historian Walter Scheidel beat me to it. What did the Roman Empire ever do for us? It fell and never returned—and with it, it paved the way for modernity. That, in one sentence, is the bold idea Scheidel puts forth here. And rather than ask why Rome fell, he has far more interesting questions for you. Why did nothing like it arise ever again in Europe? Why did it arise in the first place? And how did this influence the way Europe came to dominate the world much later? Escape from Rome is a brilliantly subversive book that offers a refreshingly novel look at how Europe got to where it is now.

Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity, written by Walter Scheidel, published by Princeton University Press in October 2019 (hardback, 670 pages)

Now, I have to start with a disclaimer. As the name of this blog implies, I am not a trained historian—I am just a biologist with way too many interests, history being one of them. That, and I have reviewed and enjoyed two of Scheidel’s previous books. It is therefore all the more to his credit that I had no trouble reading this book: Escape from Rome is very well written and structured—do not let the heft of this 670-page tome intimidate you.

Methodologically, Scheidel relies on two approaches to make his argument: historical comparisons and counterfactuals. The former involves looking for bigger patterns outside of your narrow speciality. Here this means looking at what happened in Europe after the fall of the Roman empire, but also at empire building in other parts of the world. In Scheidel’s words: “Comparison […] helps us transcend peculiarities of evidence for a particular case or the dominant academic tradition thereon” (p. 22). Counterfactuals, the “what would have happened if…” stories, are perhaps more controversial and he is at pains to point why they are needed and how to properly use them. Scheidel again: “The key question must be this: How little change would have been enough for history to have taken an alternative path […] this question calls for adherence to what has been called the “minimal-rewrite rule”: the least amount of tweaking of actual history and avoidance of arbitrary intervention.” (p. 24).

Taking the above questions and methods as a starting point, Scheidel’s argument runs roughly something like this. (And I apologise in advance if I skip over subtleties as I attempt to cram 500 pages worth of material into four paragraphs.) When it comes to empire building over the last two millennia, Europe is an exception compared to East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East & North Africa (other areas are briefly considered but do not add much). While the latter three all show varying degrees of repeated empire formation with short breaks in between, Europe had a one-shot empire followed by enduring “polycentrism”. Polycentrism is a core term in this book and refers to competitive fragmentation. Rather than a monopoly on power, a polycentric system has multiple centres of power competing with each other for control. Something that, Scheidel hopes to show here, spurs innovation.

“When it comes to empire building over the last two millennia, Europe is an exception compared to East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East & North Africa”

To explore this contrast further, Scheidel first charts how the Roman empire rose to power and if there was ever any time where its formation might have been prevented. He sees only one counterfactual as likely: the Macedonians under the leadership of Alexander the Great could have prevented Roman hegemony towards the end of the 4th century. But when they did not, Roman expansion became almost impossible to halt, and the counterfactuals required become increasingly unlikely. Next up is the question of why nothing like Rome ever rose again in Europe. Scheidel discusses eight examples where Europe came close to a new empire but, for various reasons explained here, did not. This includes, amongst others, the surviving East Roman empire, Arab expansion in the 7th and 8th centuries, Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century, the 16th-century Habsburg empire, and the Ottomans in 16th and 17th centuries.

Having explored the dimension of time, Scheidel then turns his comparative approach to space. What about empire building outside of Europe? The focus is specifically on ancient China where the imperial tradition was so resilient as to be almost the polar opposite of what happened in Europe (plus, Scheidel has explored this comparison before). After considering, for example, differences in tax regimes, geographical and ecological conditions, religious belief systems, and other cultural factors, he concludes that conditions in East Asia were very conducive to repeated empire-building, while South Asia and the Middle East & North Africa fall somewhere between the two.

Finally, Scheidel considers the rise of the West, which is an incredibly popular topic. From Ian Morris’s Why the West Rules – for Now and Joel Mokyr’s A Culture of Growth, to Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence or Philip T. Hoffman’s Why Did Europe Conquer the World? (to name just a few)—there is a veritable cottage industry of scholars probing this question. Scheidel discusses these and many other books here, considering a wide range of factors: political institutions, the exploitation of external resources through colonialism and mercantilism, scientific and technological advances, and many others besides. What these have in common, argues Scheidel, is that their contribution to the rise of the West relies on polycentrism, on there not being a Roman-scale empire to suppress competition and invention.

“Finally, Scheidel considers the rise of the West […] there is a veritable cottage industry of scholars probing this question […] Scheidel [argues that] the rise of the West [relied] on polycentrism, on there not being a Roman-scale empire to suppress competition and invention.”

That, in a nutshell, is the scope of the material covered here. Despite its length, the book’s excellent structure meant I never got lost (even if the history of fiscal systems in chapter 7 made my eyes glaze over ever so slightly). And though the tone is academic, the jargon is never impenetrable: Scheidel manages to walk the fine line between precisely articulating himself while not coming off pedantic. Rather, I found his arguments insightful and convincing. The text is meticulously annotated and the notes frequently offer welcome commentary on which references, in particular, give a good overview of certain ideas or historical periods. Furthermore, the included graphs and maps have been properly designed for grayscale printing.

At a time where decolonisation of academic disciplines has become a hot-button topic, it is only appropriate that in closing Scheidel is careful to ward off accusations of Eurocentrism: “Had comparable conditions surfaced in some other parts of the world, they might very well have produced similar results” (p. 501–502). And similarly, China not conquering the world despite its powerful empire is not be interpreted as inferiority on their part: “the Chinese experience was merely a particularly intense manifestation of a much broader pattern. Other large empires faced similar constraints.” (p. 446).

Scheidel’s take on this topic is highly original and the questions he poses delighted me on multiple occasions. On page 26, he predicts that the variation in content and perspective are bound to irritate both historians and social scientists, but he hopes that they will nevertheless engage with his work. I cannot see how they could not: this is a monumental work that will be impossible to ignore. But beyond fellow scholars, the book’s excellent writing and structure will please any serious history buff.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Escape from Rome

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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When it comes to environmental issues, certain topics steal the limelight, with climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss being prominent examples. However, humans have only so much time and energy available, meaning that other, potentially more pressing problems might not get the attention they deserve. Resource depletion, specifically all the materials we dig up from the Earth’s crust, has always struck me as one of them. It is easy to underestimate just how thoroughly dependent modern civilization is on a vast range of very basic substances. As we continue to extract these at ever-accelerating rates, competition and conflict seem inevitable. Guessing by the title of this book, Australian business journalist Geoff Hiscock seems to think so too. Yet this book was not quite what I was expecting.

Earth Wars: The Battle for Global Resources, written by Geoff Hiscock, published by John Wiley & Sons in April 2012 (hardback, 286 pages)

Hiscock’s main goal with Earth Wars is to introduce the major economies (especially China and India) that are consuming Earth’s resources and the kinds of resources they are competing for. Given that this book was published in 2012, it is inevitable that some information here is outdated, although the larger theme of future resource conflict holds up. Two factors, in particular, have given this book a somewhat limited shelf life.

First is Hiscock’s choice to give a snapshot of the state of play at the start of 2012. After having introduced the major movers and shakers (the trading, mining, and energy companies), a large part of the book consists of chapters discussing both resources and capacities. The former covers primarily fresh water, fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal), uranium, and metals such as copper and iron ore, both how much is being consumed and how much is still in the ground. The latter gives an overview of the sizes and output of mines, oil and gas fields, refineries, power stations, and assorted renewable energy infrastructures. The book goes into great detail which companies have stakes and investments in what and for how much, and which countries are expected to become important resource suppliers and see strong economic growth. By now, of course, this snapshot of the global economy has become dated, but as a historical overview of where we were at the time of publication that is fine.

“Given that this book was published in 2012 [Hiscock’s] snapshot of the global economy has become dated, but as a historical overview of where we were at the time of publication that is fine.”

A second aspect of this book that has aged less well is Hiscock’s mention of the numerous forecasts, outlooks, predictions, and plans of all these companies and countries. Following up on each statement would be tantamount to rewriting this book, but when out of curiosity I did some spot checks it was clear that things have not always panned out as expected. For example, the Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea, subject of a 1996 environmental damage lawsuit, did not close in 2013 as expected, while the plans to turn the Australian Olympic Dam mine into the world’s largest open-pit mine were shelved by the time this book was published. Other things came to pass, but not quite as expected. The Brazilian Belo Monte dam was completed in 2019 rather than 2015, but already seems to be running into trouble, while the repeatedly-mentioned planned merger between global commodities trader Glencore and mining company Xstrata turned into a takeover. Of course, I do not expect Hiscock to have a crystal ball, but readers will have to keep this in mind.

Every reader comes to a book with certain expectations of what will be discussed. These not being met does not necessarily mean the book should be judged negatively. With that caveat in mind, I was nevertheless surprised that Hiscock fails to engage with the impossibility of endless growth on a finite resource base, all the more so as he is aware of it. The publisher’s blurb mentions the “ongoing scramble for finite natural resources“, chapter 1 opens with the acknowledgement that “the pressure on the planet’s finite resources is rising rapidly” (p. 1). Even the concept of the Great Acceleration is not new to him, as evidenced when he quotes Rio Tinto chief executive Tom Albanese, speaking in 2011: “Over the next 30 years it is projected that the world will consume as much copper as it has over the last 10,000 years” (p. 139). Regarding iron ore mining in Australia Hiscock estimates that “By 2020, mining in the Pilbara could reach 1 billion tonne a year, meaning that without further resource discoveries, the ore could be gone within 30 years” (p. 162). Does this not set any alarm bells ringing?

“I was […] surprised that Hiscock fails to engage with the impossibility of endless growth on a finite resource base, all the more so as he is aware of it.”

The book’s title suggests that the likely outcome is (violent) conflict. And though Hiscock highlights hotspots, he does not really explore this theme. Nor does he ever question any of the industry executives or business leaders he had access to while writing this book. What will they do when the resource party fizzles out? Is it even ethical or desirable to turn the planet inside out to get at the last resources? I feel this is a missed opportunity, especially from a journalist with access to some very elite business circles. I will have to dust off my copies of Bardi’s Extracted and Klare’s The Race for What’s Left for a future review.

As Eileen Crist highlighted in Abundant Earth (I keep coming back to this book), the language people employ is very revealing. Earth Wars describes our planet as an endless portfolio of assets to be acquired, of reserves to be brought on stream, of blocks to be developed. And I get the uncomfortable feeling that when Hiscock speaks of Earth Wars, he is not talking about the actual warfare in our future, but of the competition between businesses. Like a game show host, he writes of Russia that if it can get its act together and overcome the many challenges ahead “it will be a genuine Earth Wars winner“. And a bit further on: “If the Earth Wars were a sporting contest, here’s how the half-time score might stand at the beginning of 2012 […]” (p. 261).

Beg your pardon?

This is not a lazy Sunday afternoon game of football where afterwards we all get to pat each other on the back for a match well played and go home for supper! It is hard not to come away with the impression that these business sectors are run by people with some serious tunnel vision.

“I get the uncomfortable feeling that when Hiscock speaks of Earth Wars, he is not talking about the actual warfare in our future […] Like a game show host, he writes of Russia that if it can get its act together […] “it will be a genuine Earth Wars winner“”

Putting these ideological differences aside for a moment, there were some interesting bits I did take away from this book. The book drives home the point how interconnected these industries are with pretty much everyone having fingers in each other’s pies. Hiscock also lifts a corner of the veil on the little-known business sector of global commodity traders that aim “to keep the lowest possible profile” (p. 39) – the upcoming The World for Sale promises to rip the veil off this completely. And though sand does not feature here, he does briefly mention the importance of rare earth elements that “one day may prove the biggest mining bonanza of them all” (p. 2). I discuss these more in-depth in reviews of The Elements of Power and The Rare Metals War.

For readers interested in the economics of natural resources, Earth Wars provides an in-depth snapshot. By its very nature, this picture is now dated, and not all material here has aged well. The title personally led me to expect a different take on the topic than the one Hiscock delivers here, so I will be turning to below books to explore this topic further.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Earth Wars

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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What is the price of humanity’s progress? The cover of this book, featuring a dusty landscape of tree stumps, leaves little to the imagination. In the eyes of French journalist and historian Laurent Testot it has been nothing short of cataclysmic. Originally published in French in 2017, The University of Chicago Press published the English translation at the tail-end of 2020.

Early on, Testot makes clear that environmental history as a discipline can take several forms: studying both the impact of humans on the environment, and of the environment on human affairs, as well as putting nature in a historical context. Testot does all of this in this ambitious book as he charts the exploits of Monkey—his metaphor for humanity—through seven revolutions and three million years.

Cataclysms: An Environmental History of Humanity, written by Laurent Testot, published by The University of Chicago Press in November 2020 (hardback, 452 pages)

To be frank, Testot deals with the first 2,988,000 years in the first two chapters. Understandably, as the pace of progress was initially slow, and comparatively little information is available to us from the palaeontological and archaeological records. Thus, he starts his history proper with the agricultural revolution ~12,000 years ago. Given the synthesizing nature of this book, Cataclysms will be a feast of recognition for readers that are familiar with the literature.

Some examples include the near-simultaneous rise of agriculture in several places, with geography playing an important role in which plants and animals were available to domesticate, or the fall of the Late-Bronze Age civilizations in the 12th century BCE. The myth of virgin rainforests and the long history of agriculture practised in the jungle. The microbiological onslaught that accompanied the Columbian exchange when Christopher Columbus and other explorers brought new epidemics to the Americas, or the scourge of mosquito-borne diseases that later decimated European colonialists overseas. The medieval Little Ice Age and the global crises it precipitated, or the worldwide impact of the Tambora volcanic eruption. The Great Acceleration in the 20th century and the recognition of the Anthropocene. All of these have been chronicled at length in books and other publications.

“Given the synthesizing nature of this book, Cataclysms will be a feast of recognition for readers that are familiar with the literature.”

Testot also mentions episodes that I was barely familiar with; partially, I suspect, because he can draw on the French history literature. For example the eruption of the Samalas volcano that seems to have served as a transition between the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Or the 15th-century mining for silver in the Andes and the immense pollution that caused. Or the environmental roots of the expression “mad as a hatter” (it involves the 17th-century beaver trade). Cataclysms sometimes seems to forget it is an environmental history book. Thus, the environment takes a backseat when he describes the Axial Age, the period between 800 and 300 BCE that saw the birth of universal religions and philosophies in both Asia and Europe that are still with us today. Similarly, the chapter charting the rise of money, empires, and trade in Europe and Asia before the Common Era only at the very end examines the environmental impact of it all.

The book’s style might divide opinions. Testot throws all his eggs in the proverbial narrative basket. The book is clearly deeply researched, but the notes section at the end encompasses a mere 16 pages. Testot must have decided that supporting every claim and fact with a footnote would have distracted from the story he tells. Although the references contain many interesting books and publications, those wishing to check up on certain claims will have to do their own research. Furthermore, the book is strikingly devoid of photos, maps, graphs, and tables, bar a single chart of the human world population through time in the appendix. As such, I felt Cataclysms did not deliver on the dustjacket’s promise of providing “the full tally” the way e.g. Vaclav Smil did in Harvesting the Biosphere. Those wanting a more data-driven overview will probably want to check out Cataclysms‘s big contender for 2020, Daniel R. Headrick’s Humans versus Nature. I had the chance to rifle through a copy, though not yet read it in full. At 604 pages with a 100-page notes section (and some illustrations), it promises to be a denser read.

“[The book] will undoubtedly charm newcomers to the field with its narrative style and ambitious scope […] but I suspect that seasoned readers will crave something more dense and data-heavy.”

Testot’s outlook for the future is bleak, though his concluding chapter wanders somewhat aimlessly. Rather than offering an overview of which planetary boundaries we have breached and how far in overshoot we are, Testot focuses on what he calls the upcoming Evolutive Revolution before turning to some likely consequences of climate change. This final revolution could either pan out as the pipe-dream of transhumanism where nano-, bio-, and information technologies converge into the singularity that would make humans immortal / obsolete as Artificial Intelligence takes over (something Testot is critical of), or we may end up as mutants in the chemical cesspit that we are making of our planet. Throw in a conclusion and an epilogue to the English edition that both reiterate main points from the book, and it starts to feel a little bit like Tolkien’s struggle to let the reader go in the last book of The Lord of the Rings.

Environmental history has become a rather crowded subject and opinions will probably be divided on whether Cataclysms stands out from the crowd sufficiently. It will undoubtedly charm newcomers to the field with its narrative style and ambitious scope—Testot knows how to spin a fine yarn and provides an entry point to many fascinating chapters in world history that readers will want to explore further. I certainly enjoyed reading it, but I suspect that seasoned readers will crave something more dense and data-heavy.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Cataclysms

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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In his previous book, Beyond Words, ecologist Carl Safina convinced his readers of the rich inner lives of animals. Just like we do, they have thoughts, feelings, and emotions. But the similarities do not stop there. Becoming Wild focuses on animal culture, the social knowledge that is transmitted between individuals and generations through sharing and learning. The more we look, the more animals seem less different from us—or we from them. On top of that, Safina puts forward several eye-opening and previously-overlooked implications of animal culture.

Becoming Wild: How Animals Learn to be Animals, written by Carl Safina, published in Europe by Oneworld Publications in April 2020 (hardback, 377 pages)

To observe animal culture first-hand, Safina focuses on three species and accompanies the researchers that study them in the field. He furthermore draws on the primary scientific literature on culture in a host of other species. The stars of this book are sperm whales and the long-term Dominica Sperm Whale Project led by Shane Gero, the scarlet macaws in Peru studied by Don Brightsmith and Gaby Vigo’s group, and the chimpanzees in Uganda’s Budongo Forest studied by Cat Hobaiter’s group. They are worth the price of admission alone.

I admit I have a thing for the denizens of the deep. Just as Safina previously showed orcas to be fascinating, here he taught me how little I know about sperm whales. Clearly, I must read up on them. They communicate in clicks generated by the world’s most powerful animal sonar. Beyond finding squid in the deep, unique patterns of clicks (so-called codas) announce group membership to other whales. Sperm whale families worldwide are organised in different clans that do not mingle, each sounding their own coda. And these have to be learned by youngsters. Safina furthermore gives a searing history of whaling and its effects and considers what we know of culture in other cetaceans.

It is hard not to like parrots, and the section on macaws provides plenty of antics to enjoy. These pair-bonding birds teach their young where food is to be found and what ripens when. Sodium is in short supply in this part of the jungle, so macaws use ancient clay deposits as communal salt licks. But this is also an opportunity to socialise, find mates, and see who is hanging out with who. Here, too, groups of parrots have idiosyncratic cultural preferences for certain salt licks over others.

“The three stars of this book—sperm whales, scarlet macaws, and chimpanzees—are worth the price of admission alone.”

Chimpanzees, then, have been intensively studied and examples of culture abound. Different groups have unique tool use and dietary habits that get passed down the generations, not just through copying, but at times even through teaching. Some chimps use rocks as anvils and hammers to crack nuts, some craft wooden spears to kill bush babies hiding inside logs, while others raid nearby farms for guava fruit that most chimps will not touch. They live in strongly hierarchical groups where alpha males vie for power, and violent outbursts are frequent. Youngsters have to be taught everybody’s place in the ranking as they grow up. Nevertheless, Cat Hobaiter is at pains to show Safina that most of the time these animals are peaceful. Based on this, primary literature, and books such as The New Chimpanzee and The Real Chimpanzee, Safina, in turn, paints a nuanced picture of chimpanzee society. Interested readers will also want to look out for the forthcoming Chimpanzee: Lessons from our Sister Species and Chimpanzees in Context for the state-of-the-art of the field.

But these three focus species are not all there is. Safina examines other studies to show how widespread animal culture is. He draws parallels between humans and other animals and probingly asks what this means for how we treat them and their world. Perhaps no more so than on page 327: “No wisdom tradition grants a generation permission to deplete the world and drive it toward ruin […] Life is a relay race, our task merely to pass the torch.” And he develops interesting ideas, two of which struck me as eye-opening.

One is the underrated significance of culture for conservation biology. Much of how animals learn to be animals depends on knowledge being passed from generation to generation. Thus, the biodiversity crisis is about more than just numerical losses, genetic bottlenecks, and habitat fragmentation. Unique cultures are snuffed out as we kill animals and destroy their habitats to claim more room for ourselves. Worse, breaking these links of knowledge transmission also greatly hinders reintroduction efforts. Without their elders to teach them how to live in their particular environments, young animals often struggle to survive, while willy-nilly translocating mature animals is bound to run into obstacles. It is a disheartening insight that, it seems to me, many conservation biologists and organisations still have to come to terms with.

“[…] the biodiversity crisis is about more than just numerical losses, genetic bottlenecks, and habitat fragmentation. Unique cultures are snuffed out as we kill animals and destroy their habitats to claim more room for ourselves”

The other concerns the role of culture in speciation and evolution. Safina hinted at this in Beyond Words but here develops this idea more fully. The evolution of new species starts with reproductive isolation between different groups, this much biologists agree on. But what drives reproductive isolation? Traditionally, geography is invoked: the formation of mountains and rivers, or the conquest of islands separates populations in space, preventing reproduction. If this persists, populations start to diverge and are on their way to becoming separate species. Biologists call this allopatric speciation. But there are cases, the Lake Victoria cichlids being a textbook example, where species continue to share the same habitat and could interbreed but for some reason do not. This is known as sympatric speciation. Biologists have long struggled to explain what causes reproductive isolation here.

Culture could.

As Safina points out, socially learned preferences lead to avoidance between groups and thus to reproductive isolation. In orcas, for example, different groups with different diets (fish vs. marine mammals) are already showing morphological changes. Safina proposes that, next to natural and sexual selection, cultural selection could be a pathway to speciation. It is a thought-provoking idea.

“[…] socially learned preferences lead to avoidance between groups and thus to reproductive isolation […] Safina proposes that, next to natural and sexual selection, cultural selection could be a pathway to speciation. “

What makes Becoming Wild such a pleasure to read is that Safina speaks to you in many voices. There is Safina the ecologist, Safina the conservationist, Safina the philosopher, etc. He has many angles on his subject which keeps the narrative flowing and the reader engaged. His questions are probing: Who are we sharing the planet with and what is life like for them? In places, his prose soars into poetry. When writing of the dawn chorus: “Dawn is the song that silence sings […] as the eyelash of daybreak rolls endlessly across the planet, a chorus of birds and monkeys is eternally greeting a new dawn.” (p. 232) And the epigraph that describes Shane Gero’s revelation as to why he studies sperm whales was so powerful that Safina had me in tears before even starting the book.

Becoming Wild is another jewel in the crown of Safina’s work that packs fascinating field studies, interesting theoretical ideas, soul-searching questions, and probing reflections on human and animal nature into a book that is as profound as it is moving.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Becoming Wild

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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The Southern Ocean, that vast body of water that flows unhindered around Antarctica, has to be one of the most forbidding oceans on our planet. Its latitudes are referred to by increasingly unnerving names the gale-force winds that have terrorised mariners since they first set sail here – the roaring forties, the furious fifties, the screaming sixties. Its waters are so cold that they are actually below freezing in places, with only their salinity preventing them from freezing solid (fish here have evolved antifreeze proteins!) As a consequence of these extreme conditions, this region has long remained unexplored. But, as historian Joy McCann shows, explore it we did. Brace yourself for a gripping piece of environmental history, marked by heroism as much as hubris, and curiosity as much as cruelty.

Wild Sea: A History of the Southern Ocean, written by Joy McCann, published in Europe and the USA by the University of Chicago Press in May 2019 (hardback, 274 pages)

Our planet cares little for cartography. From its perspective, there has only ever been one ocean, one all-enveloping fluid lapping its shores. What we now recognize as the Southern Ocean took shape some 40 to 20 million years ago as the forces of plate tectonics ripped up Gondwanaland, pulling apart Australia and Antarctica. Its completion arrived when the Magellan land bridge between South America and Antarctica was breached, opening up the Drake Passage and allowing the ocean to flow unimpededly around Antarctica in a so-called circumpolar current. This, as McCann explains in her introduction, is the geographical setting of the Southern Ocean.

Humans, meanwhile, have long speculated about the existence of a Southern continent, going back as far as the second-century astronomist Ptolemy. Although rumoured sightings of Antarctica by European explorers go back at least as far as 1599, it was not until the mid-1700s that in particular England and France started despatching ships on missions that were equal parts conquest and discovery. These were the times of James Cook commanding HMS Endeavour, Resolution, and Adventure, and later James Clark Ross aboard HMS Erebus and Terror. Particularly influential, and featured here extensively by McCann, was HMS Challenger expedition, which has been hailed as birthing modern oceanography. It also saw merchant’s vessels take crazy risks to try and find shorter routes to India. McCann’s description of sailing boats venturing into the roaring forties and having to turn north at the right moment at a time when they could not even fix their longitude beggars belief.

“The Southern Ocean […] has to be one of the most forbidding oceans on our planet. Its latitudes referred to by increasingly unnerving names – the roaring forties, the furious fifties, the screaming sixties”

McCann has organised each of her chapters around a natural attribute of the Southern Ocean (ocean, wind, coast, ice, deep, current), rather than stick to a strict chronology. This means she sometimes retreads the same historical path but from a slightly different perspective. One such perspective that leaves a bloody trail through the book is that of brutal exploitation. The cold waters of the Southern Ocean feed a huge number of seals, penguins, whales, and fish – and humans have ruthlessly hunted these to near-extinction in roughly that order. Seals were hunted by the millions for fur starting in the 1800s. Penguins fell victim not long after. An estimated two million (!) whales were harpooned, sliced up, and rendered into oil – lubricating and lighting the Industrial Revolution back in Europe. The ecological consequences of this slaughter still reverberate through these ecosystems and fish and whales remain under threat.

McCann pays as much attention to the natural world in this environmental history. Though not intended as a primer on the biology of marine mammals and seabirds, the pages of Wild Sea are nevertheless littered with details on the lives of whales, seals, albatrosses, petrels, and fulmars, though she has left out some delightfully risqué details on penguins. I was very pleased, however, to see her go into the microscopic creatures underlying all this biological richness, such as the diatoms (single-celled algae) and zooplankton, notably the large Antarctic krill.

“An estimated two million (!) whales were harpooned, sliced up, and rendered into oil – lubricating and lighting the Industrial Revolution back in Europe”

The physical environment also features prominently. Much like generations of sailors before her, McCann marvels at ice – the bergs, the floes, the glaciers – and the sometimes otherworldly play of the light here. But I was fascinated by what lies beneath. There is the ocean’s bathymetry (the underwater topography) and the incredible story of the mapping of the ocean floor (see also the biography of Marie Tharp). These efforts revealed the existence of mid-ocean ridges that helped the theory of plate tectonics finally find wide acceptance.

But McCann really enraptured me with the currents. These slowly travelling bodies of water shape our climate on a planetary scale and understanding their three-dimensional nature is an ongoing mission. Invisible to us, this underwater realm features waves, eddies, gyres, and underwater storms of staggering proportions. McCann captures some of this mysterious grandeur in her descriptions: “In the Weddell and Ross seas, which lie on either side of West Antarctica, the water becomes heavy as salt leaches out of the ice shelves, forming waterfalls below the ocean surface that plunge up to 2 kilometres into the abyss.” (p. 144) Her helpful notes link to an amazing animation put together by the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University.

“Currents form an underwater realm of staggering proportions. McCann captures some of this mysterious grandeur in her descriptions”

Wild Sea is an incredibly diverse book and McCann’s writing is informative and absorbing. In just 200 pages she manages to touch on a plethora of topics including history, oceanography, climatology, ecology, and marine biology. There are other amazing stories in this book I have not mentioned, one inspiring example being footage of a traditional whale-calling ceremony culminating in a meeting of indigenous leaders from around the globe. As an introduction to the many entangled natural and human histories of the Southern Ocean, this one comes highly recommended.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Wild Sea hardback or ebook

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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