Category: Geography and the Environment

Sustainable Planet: How Respecting The Earth Is Protecting Our Future by Anna Claybourne

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Sustainable Planet

Planet Earth is facing BIG challenges.  As the population steadily grows, we’re creating more and more waste, using up natural resources, polluting our seas and skies and even changing our climate.  To save our precious home, we all need to learn to live more sustainably.

SUSTAINABLE PLANET looks at what sustainability is, why it is so important and how we can all help to create a better, more sustainable world for the future.  It explores some effective and achievable ways of improving sustainability, both with global actions, such as investing in renewable energy and protecting biodiversity, and individual ones, such as avoiding fast fashion, eating less meat and even planting trees.

SUSTAINABLE PLANET was released in the United Kingdom on 14th April 2022.  Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

You can order SUSTAINABLE PLANET by Anna Claybourne from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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The Return Of The Russian Leviathan by Sergei Medvedev

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Russia’s relationship with its neighbours and with the West has worsened dramatically in recent years.  Under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, the country has annexed Crimea, begun a way in Eastern Ukraine, used chemical weapons on the streets of the UK and created an army of internet trolls to meddle in the US presidential elections.  How should we understand this apparent relapse into aggressive imperialism and militarism?

In this book, Sergei Medvedev argues that this new wave of Russian nationalism is the result of mentalities that have long been embedded within the Russian psyche.  Whereas in the West, the turbulent social changes of the 1960s and a rising awareness of the legacy of colonialism have modernised attitudes, Russia has been stymied by an enduring sense of superiority over its neighbours alongside a painful nostalgia for empire.  It is this infantilised and irrational world view that Putin and others have exploited, as seen most clearly in Russia’s recent foreign policy decisions, including the annexation of Crimea.

This sharp and insightful book, full of irony and humour, shows how the archaic forces of imperial revanchist have been brought back to life, shaking Russian society and threatening the outside world.  It will be of great interest to anyone trying to understand the forces shaping Russian politics and society today.

You can order THE RETURN OF THE RUSSIAN LEVIATHAN by Sergei Medvedev from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

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Be An Eco Hero! At Home by Florence Urquhart and Lisa Koesterke

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Find out how you can be an eco hero at home! Learn how to save energy and water, and how to reduce, reuse and recycle your waste.

Then take our eco hero quiz!

BE AN ECO HERO! AT HOME was released in the United Kingdom on 13th January 2022.  Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

You can order BE AN ECO HERO! AT HOME by Florence Urquhart and Lisa Koesterke from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Climate Change And The Nation State by Anatol Lieven

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A major new book on why the most urgent issue confronting us all needs national solutions.

In the past two centuries we have experienced wave after wave of overwhelming change.  Entire continents have been resettled; there are billions more of us; the jobs done by countless people would be unrecognisable to their predecessors; scientific change has transformed us all in confusing, terrible and miraculous ways.

Anatol Lieven’s major new book provides the frame that has long been needed to understand how we should react to climate change.  This is a vast challenge, but we have often in the past had to deal with such challenges; the industrial revolution, major wars and mass migration have seen mobilisations of human energy on the greatest scale. Just as previous generations had to face the unwanted and unpalatable, so do we.

In a series of incisive, compelling interventions, Lieven shows how in this emergency our crucial building block is the nation state.  The drastic action required both to change our habits and protect ourselves can be carried out not through some vague globalism but through maintaining social cohesion and through our current governmental, fiscal and military structures.

This is a book which will provoke innumerable discussions.  

You can order CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE NATION STATE: THE REALIST CASE by Anatol Lieven from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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The Hunt For Mount Everest by Craig Storti

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The height of Mount Everest was first measured in 1850, but the closest any westerner got to Everest during the next 71 years, until 1921, was 40 miles.  The Hunt For Mount Everest tells the story of the 71-year quest to find the world’s highest mountain.  It’s a tale of high drama, of larger-than-life-characters – George Everest, Francis Younghusband, George Mallory, Lord Curzon, Edward Whymper – and a first quiet heroes – Alexander Kelly’s, the 13th Dalia Lama, and Charles Bell.

A story that traverses the Alps, the Himalayas, Nepal and Tibet, the British Empire (especially British India and the Raj), the Anglo-Russian rivalry known as The Great Game, the disastrous First Afghan War, and the phenomenal Survey of India – it is far bigger than simply the tallest mountain in the world.  Encountering spies, war, political intrigues, and hundreds of mules, camels, bullocks, yaks, and two zebrules, Craig Storti uncovers the fascinating and still largely overlooked saga of all that led up to that moment in late June of 1921 when two English climbers, George Mallory and Guy Bullock, became the first westerners – and almost certainly the first human beings – to set foot on Mount Everest and thereby claimed the last remaining major prize in the history of exploration.

With 2021 bringing the 100th anniversary of that year, most Everest chronicles have dealt with the climbing history of the mountain, with all that happened after 1921.  The Hunt For Mount Everest is the seldom-told story of all that happened before. 

You can order THE HUNT FOR MOUNT EVEREST by Craig Storti from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Novacene: The Coming Age Of Hyperintelligence by James Lovelock and Bryan Appleyard

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A new look at the future of life on Earth by the great scientific visionary of our age.

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about the future of life on Earth.  He argues that the anthropocene – the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies – is, after 300 years, coming to an end.  A new age – the novacene- has already begun.

New beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems.  They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and they will regard us as we now regard plants – as desperately slow acting and thinking creatures.  But this will not be the cruel, violent machine takeover of the planet imagined by sci-if writers and film-makers.  These hyper-intelligent beings will be as dependent on the health of the planet as we are.  They will need the planetary cooling system of Gaia to defend them from the increasing heat of the sun as much as we do.  And Gaia depends on organic life.  We will be partners in this project.

It is crucial, Lovelock argues, that the intelligence of Earth survives and prospers.  He does not think there are intelligent aliens, so we are the only beings capable of understanding the cosmos.  Maybe, he speculates, the novacene could even be the beginning of a process that will finally lead to intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos.  At the age 100, James Lovelock has produced an important and compelling new work. 

You can order NOVACENE: THE COMING AGE OF HYPERINTELLIGENCE by James Lovelock and Bryan Appleyard from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Why Cities Look The Way They Do by Richard J Williams

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We tend to think cities look the way they do because of the conscious work of architects, planners and builders.  But what if the look of cities had less to do with design, and more to do with social, cultural, financial and political processes, and the way ordinary citizens interact with them?  What if the city is a process as much as a design?  Richard J Williams takes the moment construction is finished as a beginning, tracing the myriad processes that produce the look of the contemporary global city.

This book is the story of dramatic but unforeseen urban sights: how financial capital spawns empty towering skyscrapers and hollowed-out ghettoes; how the zoning of once-illicit sexual practices in marginal areas of the city results in the reinvention of culturally vibrant gay villages; how abandoned factories have been repurposed as creative hubs in a precarious postindustrial economy.  It is also the story of how popular urban cliches and the fictional portrayal of cities powerfully shape the way we read and see the bricks, concrete and glass that surround us.

Thought-provoking and original, Why Cities Look The Way They Do will appeal to anyone who wants to understand the contemporary city, shedding new light on humanity’s greatest collective invention.

You can order Why Cities Look The Way They Do by Richard J Williams from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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There Is No Planet B by Mike Berners-Lee

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We have the chance to live better than ever.  But, as humans become ever more powerful, can we avoid blundering into disaster?

Feeding the world, climate change, biodiversity, antibiotics, plastics – the list of concerns seems endless.  But what I most pressing, what are the knock-on effects of our actions, and what should we do first?  Do we all need to become vegetarian?  How can we fly in a low carbon world?  Should we frack?  How can we take control of technology?  Does it all come down to population?  And, given the global nature of the challenges we now face, what on Earth can any of us do?

Fortunately, Mike Berners-Lee has crunched the numbers and plotted a course of action that is practical and even enjoyable.

There Is No Planet B maps it out in an accessible and entertaining way, filled with astonishing facts and analysis.  For the first time you’ll find big-picture perspective on the environmental and economic challenges of the day laid out in one place, and traced through to the underlying roots – questions of how we live and think.  This book will shock you, surprise you – and then make you laugh.

And you’ll find practical and even inspiring ideas for what you can actually do to help humanity thrive on this – our only – planet. 

You can order There Is No Planet B by Mike Berners-Lee from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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The Scramble For Europe by Stephen Smith

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From the harrowing situation of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean in rubber dinghies to the crisis on the US-Mexico border, mass migration is one of the most urgent issues facing our societies today.  At the same time, viable solutions seem ever more remote, with the increasing polarisation of public attitudes and political positions.

In this book, Stephen Smith focuses on ‘young Africa’ – 40 per cent of its population are under fifteen – and a dramatic demographic shift.  Today, 510 million people live inside EU borders, and 1.25 billion in Africa.  In 2050, 450 million Europeans will face 2.5 billion Africans – five times their number.  The demographics are implacable.  The scramble for Europe will become as inexorable as the ‘scramble for Africa’ was at the end of the nineteenth century, when 275 million people lived north and only 100 million lived south of the Mediterranean.  Then it was all about raw materials and national pride, now it is about young Africans seeking a better life on the Old Continent, the island of prosperity within their reach.  If Africa’s migratory patterns follow the historic precedents set by other less developed parts of the world, in thirty years a quarter of Europe’s population will be Afro-Europeans.  Addressing the question of how Europe can cope with an influx of this magnitude, Smith argues for a path between the two extremes of today’s debate.  He advocates migratory policies of ‘good neighbourhood’ equidistant from guilt-Rudder self-denial and nativist egotism.

This sobering analysis of the migration challenges we now face will be essential reading for anyone concerns with the great social and political questions of our time.  

You can order The Scramble For Europe by Stephen Smith from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Swiss Watching: Inside The Land Of Milk And Honey by Diccon Bewes

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One country, four languages, 26 cantons and 8 million people (but only 75% of them Swiss): welcome to Europe’s most individual country.  But there’s more to Switzerland than banks and skis, francs and cheese.  This is a place where the breathtaking scenery shaped a nation not just a tour itinerary, and where tradition is as important as innovation.  It’s also been home to travel writer Diccon Bewes for over a decade.

Diccon started his Swiss explorations by seeking Heidi and finding the best chocolate, but soon became the ultimate outsider on the inside.  He discovered that not all the cheese has holes, cuckoo clocks aren’t Swiss and the trains aren’t always on time.  In fact, he uncovered the true meaning of Swissness and, in this new edition, started on the road to becoming Swiss himself.  

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Egypt by Robert Springborg

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Egypt is one of the few great empires of antiquity that exists today as a nation state.  Despite its extraordinary record of national endurance, the pressures to which Egypt is currently subjected and which are bound to intensify are already straining the ties that hold its political community together, while rendering the task of governing it ever more difficult.

In this timely book, Robert Springborg explains how a country with such a long and impressive history has come to find itself in this parlous condition.  As Egyptians become steadily more divided by class, religion, region, ethnicity, gender, and contrasting views of how, by whom, and for what purposes they should be governed, so their rulers become ever more fearful, repressive, and unrepresentative. Caught in a downward spiral in which poor governance is both cause and consequence, Egypt is facing a future so uncertain that it could end up resembling neighbouring countries that have collapsed under similar loads.  The Egyptian “hot spot”, Springborg argues, is destined to become steadily hotter, with ominous implications for its peoples, the Middle East and North Africa, and the wider world. 

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The Real Politics Of The Horn Of Africa by Alex de Waal

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The Real Politics Of The Horn Of Africa delves into the business of politics in the turbulent, war-torn countries of north-east Africa.  It is a contemporary history of how politicians, generals and insurgents bargain over money and power, and use violence to achieve their goals.

Drawing on a thirty-year career in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, including experience as a participant in high-level peace talks, Alex de Waal provides a unique and compelling account of how these countries’ leaders run their governments, conduct their business, fight their wars and, occasionally, make peace.  De Waal shows how leaders operate on a business model, securing funds for their ‘political budgets’, which they use to rent the provisional allegiances of army officers, militia commanders, tribal chiefs and party officials at the going rate.  This political marketplace is eroding the institutions of government and reversing state building – and it is fuelled by oil exports, aid funds and western military assistance for counter-terrorism and peacekeeping.

The Real Politics Of The Horn Of Africa is a sharp and disturbing book with profound implications for international relations, development and peacemaking in the Horn of Africa and beyond.

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The New Scramble For Africa by Pádraig Carmody

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Once marginalized in the world economy, Africa today is a major global supplier of crucial raw materials like oil, uranium and coltan.  China’s part in this story has loomed particularly large in recent years, and the American military footprint on the continent has also expanded.  But a new scramble for resources, markets and territory is now taking place in Africa, involving not just state, but non-state actors, including Islamic fundamentalist and other rebel groups.

The second edition of Pádraig Carmody’s popular book explores the duamics of the new scramble for African resources, markets and territory, and the impact of current investment and competition on people, the environment, and political and economic development on the continent.  Fully revised and updated throughout its chapters explore old and new economic power interest in Africa; oil, minerals, timber, biofuels, land, food and fisheries; and the nature and impacts of Asian and South African investment in manufacturing and other sectors.

The New Scramble For Africa will be essential reading for students of African studies, international relations and resource politics, as well as anyone interested in current affairs.

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Do We Need Economic Inequality? by Danny Dorling

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Although economic inequality provokes widespread disquiet, its supposed necessity is rarely questioned.  At best, a basic level of inequality is seen as a necessary evil.  At worst, it is seen as insufficient to encourage aspiration, hard work and investment – a refrain sometimes used to advocate ever greater inequality.

In this original new book, Danny Dorling critically analyses historical trends and contemporary assumptions in order to question the idea that inequality is an inevitability.  What if, he asks, widespread economic inequality is actually just a passing phase, a feature of the capitalist transition from a settled rural way of life to our next highly urban steady-state?  Is it really likely that we face a Blade Runner-style dystopian future divided between a tiny elite and an impoverished mass?

Dorling shows how, amongst much else, a stabilizing population, changing gender relations and rising access to education make a more egalitarian alternative to this nightmare vision not only preferable, but realistic. This bold contribution to one of the most significant debates of our time will be essential reading for anyone interested in our economic, social and political destiny. 

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