The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan

 

The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan

The Earth Transformed is truly planetary in its scope and ambition. Its 658 pages do not even include introductory material, plates, footnotes or index - come to that, where are the footnotes? Online somewhere? We go back temporally 4.5 billion years to the formation of the earth and forward into the future. We travel upwards and outwards from the earth’s core to ocean depths and land masses, then through the atmosphere to the farthest reaches of the solar system. Even more impressive is the scale of Frankopan’s learning. He has not only mastered the histories of most cultures in most parts of the world, he has also immersed himself in all the latest research on anthropology, biochemistry, climatology, dendrochronology, epidemiology, all the way through to zoology, and goodness knows how many other disciplines besides. 

This exhaustive approach is in the good cause of being able to take a comprehensive overview of the state of our interactions with our home planet. If you have ever bemoaned the fissiparation of knowledge into ever tinier areas of specialism that become more and more remote from one another and from the awareness of ordinary people, fear not! Peter Frankopan is out there: he gets it and is doing something about it. He wants to see how raft after raft of new discoveries stack up together, and thus give a big picture – a Frankopanorama - of what we are doing to the planet and what it is doing to us.

Some of his key findings:

• The earth has always been in a state of flux. Conditions were originally unrecognisably different from anything we experience today and would have been lethal to contemporary life forms. Changes have come in the form of cataclysms: asteroid impacts, massive volcanic events, the collisions of continents, soaring and plummeting temperatures, orbital changes for both the earth and moon… There have been periods of relative stability too, when the various forces that circulate energy round the world have been in balance: but only until the next catastrophe. The idea that the state of the world is pretty much a given, roughly what it is now, is an illusion deriving from our ignorance of the deep past.

• Climate is an important driver of this flux. Frankopan is not in any way a climate change denier. The research he quotes shows a clear correlation between higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the past and raised temperatures, and between lower levels and reduced temperatures. The connection is indisputable. Climate change deniers have to accept that the world’s climate is changing, as the evidence is there: but they attribute this to “natural cycles,” in a naïve way that omits to examine the role that levels of CO2 play in those cycles. Does it matter how the CO2 gets there? It’s still going to warm the planet, however it comes, isn’t it? So stop junking our atmosphere, you oil barons!

• Climate directly impacts human history, including pestilences, famines, migrations, the economy, the winners and losers of political struggles and so on. So for example, a wetter climate across Central Asia allowed the hordes more fodder for their horses and enabled repeated incursions Westward into Europe: a period of stable warmth supported the crops that underpinned Roman prosperity and expansion: rainfall promoted the rise of South American civilisations and droughts led to their fall. However this requires more nuance than Frankopan always gives. Why for example did the Romans succeed in benefitting from the Roman Warm Period in ways that their many rivals, Etruscans, Persians, Carthaginians, Dacians, did not? Was it military might? Or better administration? Or those beautifully engineered aqueducts that enabled the expansion of Roman cities? Or why did a grassier steppe enable the Mongols to spread West, but did not lead to Europe spreading East? What were the cultural differences that set Eastern expansion against Western defensiveness? 

• These questions militate against pure climatic determinism, thus putting human agency back into the mix. Was one people better organised, or more adaptable, or technologically or culturally better resourced than another, to resist adverse conditions and benefit from favourable ones? Like other forms of fatalism, climatic determinism robs us of decision. As it defines human strategies and policies for making the most of the conditions we inhabit, this enquiry – how we deal with the conditions that confront us - is of first importance. 

• Volcanic eruptions are a constant bass underpinning this vast song of the Earth. Huge clouds of particles block out the Sun, suspend photosynthesis, reduce plant growth and plunge the world into famine, often for years at a time. Some concentrated bouts of eruptions seem to have permanently altered the entire biosphere: but even the lesser eruptions of historical times have brought massive effects. My take on this is that recurrent proposals to artificially introduce reflective particles into Earth’s atmosphere in order to combat global warming by shielding us from solar radiation is absolute lunacy. We will duplicate the effects of all those eruptions: less photosynthesis, reduced crops, smaller harvests, it all adds up to starvation for the world’s burgeoning human population. Worse, it will actually be counterproductive since photosynthesis is the leading means of reducing atmospheric C02. Please, anybody who reads these words, speak out against this dangerous stupidity!

So how to make use of this monumental opus? It is so wide-ranging yet so detailed that any attempt to absorb it in one go is certain to fail: I really tried! Like this book, Frankopan’s earlier and very popular The Silk Roads took a very broad survey of its subject through time and space, but The Earth Transformed feels like it is telling multiple stories rather than just one. This may be why it tends to exhaust rather than inform. Much better to take it as a reference book. Dip into particular epochs or cultures or places in the massive index, read what amounts to an essay on the subject you are exploring, then investigate further using Frankopan’s notes, while checking out names, places, movements, technologies etc on Wikipedia. All the best with that!

Baltic - the future of Europe: Oliver Moody

 

The motivation for this timely book is renewed Russian aggression in Europe. Post Cold War stability has been severely shaken up following the invasion of Ukraine. Various countries formerly within the Soviet sphere are asking themselves, “Who will be in Putin’s sights next?” Formerly neutral nations – Finland and Sweden – have abandoned neutrality and joined NATO, despite Russian warnings, in search of security: but Donald Trump’s blinkered America First rhetoric has left them wondering whether they made the right choice. It was shocking to see all the various actions of Russian sabotage, harassment and surveillance listed together in one volume. Moody leaves us in no doubt that Russian hostility, only just below the level of open warfare, always testing and probing for vulnerabilities, is the reality of European political life.

Oliver Moody is a journalist who has worked for The Times in Northern Europe since 2018 and is a thoughtful contributor to The Times Literary Supplement. As well as seeking a strategic overview of the situation in the Baltic region, he is concerned to introduce us to some its lesser known nations, particularly the frontline states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They, together with Finland and Poland, will be first up in any Ukraine-style assault on Western Europe. Do they have the resolve and the resources to make Putin think twice? And what sort of support might they receive from other European powers?

I had a personal motivation for choosing this book. I am married to a Finn and frequently travel there to meet up with friends and family. I know firsthand how Finns reacted to the Ukraine war and to America’s recent anti-Europe stance. Having declared independence from revolutionary Russia in 1917, and fought a war of survival against them in 1939, and having Europe’s longest land border with them, Finland is seriously worried about the ambitions of their long term enemy. 

I have also been to Tallin via a ferry from Helsinki, shortly after Estonia’s exit from the Soviet empire. There I witnessed for myself the economic devastation visited on the country by their former masters. I wasn’t there very long, but the sight of a grandmother standing by the side of the road, trying to sell a couple of chipped teacups to be able to get a bit of bread for her family, has stuck with me. I also witnessed the sense of kinship with Finland, whose businesses were investing heavily in the country and already helping to bring about the Estonian resurgence so manifest today.

I certainly learned a lot about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (“the Baltic states”) from Baltic – as Moody rightly supposes, like most English speakers I have just about heard of them but have little further knowledge. There are potted descriptions of their pre- and post-Soviet histories, literature, national myths, musical traditions and other cultural strata, leading to an assessment of their resilience, particularly in terms of the strength of their sense of identity as peoples who have been subjected to russification and are determined never ever to go back there again. 

Baltic expects that the nations in the region will have national psyches that are reflected in their legends and cultures and are played out in their political and strategic aspirations. Estonia’s “Singing Revolution” is a great case in point: that country’s powerful choral traditions led its people to gather and sing as an act of resistance that helped to break Russian rule. 

Nonetheless Moody’s assessment has a rather nineteenth century feel to it, reminiscent of all those people who went about collecting folk songs, collating local tales into national epics whose episodes were then interpreted by leading artists of the day, championing their languages against those that had cultural ascendancy over them, and generally cultivating the late Romantic nationalisms that united some nations – Italy, Germany – and are still creating subdivisions in others – Basque and Irish separatism and the break up of Yugoslavia, among others. Finland is a great example: the bringing together of various folk tale fragments into the Kalevala, which were then iconised in music and paint by Jean Sibelius and Axeli Gallen-Kallela, challenged both Russian political and Swedish cultural hegemonies and made the Finns ready to seize their own destiny in 1917. 

This ferment undoubtedly brewed up negative as well as positive cultural effects. Arguably imperialism, colonialism, the first world war, and fascism are all dreams of romantic nationalism which soured into nightmares. An increasingly sceptical Europe turned from its Christian roots and made idols of its nations, which ended up, in the way of idolatries, devouring their children…

So is Moody right to look to a strong sense of national identity as the best way to repel Russian domination? He certainly does justice to the complexity of the issues in the Baltic states. After Stalinist russification Estonia was nearly 50% Russophone, so a key aim of the newly liberated nation was to suppress that alien culture, phasing out the teaching of Russian in schools, and closing down Russophile political parties and media. It’s very telling that although many people of Russian heritage are unhappy with these changes, none of them are so unhappy that they choose to return eastwards. 

But it’s also troubling for readers in a UK context, where the great aim seems to be to downplay ethnic and cultural difference so that we can all get along. Does this mean we are effete westerners who no longer have enough sense of our cultural and historical identity to resist 21st century aggressors and oppressors? Is cultural homogeneity too high a price to pay for national resilience? Do we need to become politically and culturally more conservative to withstand Russian ambition, and perhaps add to the growing list of “strong men” playing at identity politics among contemporary world leaders? Let’s hope not – but Baltic might have benefitted from further interrogation of these underlying issues.

What is apparent is Moody’s admiration for these small but tough and determined states. They are facing up to the challenges of Russian expansion and preparing to make Putin regret invading them if it comes to that. Having experience of Finnish “sisu” I get the attitude. They gave the Soviets a bloody nose in 1939 and if forced to are prepared to do it again: they have universal military service, up to date equipment and enough bunkers to shelter every single one of their 5 million population. Did you see the recent Scandinavia series on the BBC? It’s clear that Simon Reeves shares Moody’s admiration.

However facing down the overwhelming domination of Russia in arms and manpower will require some measure of unity among resisting countries. Moody evaluates the will to resist in each of the other states in the region, with varying results. Shakiest in his view is Germany, sadly enough as they are the largest West European nation in terms of population and economy. He sees them as still attached to the Ostpolitik of a now vanished era, hankering after the benefits of rapprochement with Russia in terms of trade and energy supply, and too ashamed of past militarism to convey deterrence in our period of heightened tensions. The description of shortages among German forces was both laughable and excruciating. There are signs that attitudes are changing and resources are being redirected: the question is, will it be too little, too late?

There are gaps. Sweden has recently joined NATO, like Finland, an example of Russian aggression producing the opposite rather than the desired effect, a strengthening rather than weakening of NATO. There was hardly any analysis of this, of how the Swedish people currently feel about, or of the history and culture of Sweden, even though they are a much larger player than most of the others. There is a direct history of Swedish and Russian confrontation, for example Charles V’s invasion of Russia (Poltova, where he was finally defeated, is in Ukraine). Sweden built castles across their then domains in Finland to keep the Russians out. Napoleon finally wrested the Grand Duchy of Finland from the Swedes and gifted it to the Czar, with whom he was temporarily allied, leading to a century of Russian rule.

An even bigger omission is some sort of handle on Russian motivation. Yes it is clear that Russia under Putin is deeply antagonistic towards the rest of Europe – but why? Is it the age old fear of invasion from the West, following in the footsteps of Charles V, Napoleon and Hitler? Is it the constriction of geography? Russia’s only maritime outlets are via the Black Sea and the Baltic, both leading to narrow straits firmly in the control of NATO member states. Or is it just the remembrance of past glories? Is it even that rather 19th century romantic nationalism with Russia as the state destined to rule the world? Sadly this is the odious view of Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has backed the unprovoked onslaught upon Ukraine, and clearly identifies these massacres as the will of Jesus Christ. Or is Kirill perhaps simply too aware of what would happen to him if he didn’t support his master, who is not Jesus but Putin? We don’t know, but if we did we might be able to counter the poison. There are more economic, spiritual and cultural prosperities available to Russia as a participant with the West than as a foe. Why can’t they see them?

Some conclusions:

• Baltic leaves us in no doubt that Russia is a hostile actor towards Western Europe that demands a firm and determined response.

• Little states such as the Baltics are not fazed by this and in spite of their small size are confident that they can be tough enough to give Putin pause for thought.

• Europe has cultures and traditions, sadly often obliterated in the case of the UK, which are worth cherishing and should not be given up to the oblivion of Russification.

• Strategically the first step Putin will take is likely to be in the Baltic. This is the impetus behind the multiple incidents of sabotage and surveillance in the area. From a Russian point of view this aggressive campaign has had the negative effect of drawing attention to their strategy. The Baltic Sea must therefore be sealed off immediately in the event of any Russian military incursion. It sounds as though Finland and Estonia are already taking steps in the setting up of anti-ship missile batteries on both sides of the Gulf of Finland.

• It’s getting late to respond adequately but it is not too late! The region is revising its priorities, reallocating its resources and is on the road to readiness.

• It’s all a double edged sword for Ukraine though. I don’t see how Russia could even consider an assault anywhere else as long as they are bogged down in Ukraine. But if peace were to be achieved in Ukraine, as we all long for it to be, that would free Russia to pursue its ambitions elsewhere…

 Femina - Janina Ramirez

A new history of the middle ages by the women written out of it.

This book was a pleasure but at times an annoying one! I have always enjoyed Janina Ramirez’s TV presentations about history and the arts and love watching this bouncy Goth discoursing about high culture. I certainly learned a lot, but also encountered highly opinionated views which I couldn’t always agree with.

Early on I was very interested to learn that the Suffragettes were inspired by their medievalism. This was a connection I have never made before, in the absence of Ms Ramirez’s guidance. I have recently been reading Sigrid Undset’s massive epic, Kristin Lavransdottir. Set in medieval Norway, there is clearly a bond being forged between medievalism, Christianity, and early feminism. Looking back to pre-Raphaelitism, Arts and Crafts and late Victorian Christian Socialism, it all makes sense in a UK context too. A great insight there.

However the fact that there was enough material to inspire the sisterhood surely indicates that it can’t have been entirely the case that women’s history was written out. Not even the suffragettes could have been inspired by a history that simply didn’t exist. So some medieval women at least did get into the records. I am a non specialist but even I can name several who for whatever reason don’t make it into Femina. What about…

• The Empress Matilda? Finding that her inheritance of the English throne had been usurped, she went into battle for it with King Stephen and was a tough and effective general.

• Margaret of Anjou, one of several French queens who were power brokers deciding the fates of the realms of England and France?

• Clare, colleague and confidante of St Francis and founder of the Poor Clares?

• Eloise, former lover of theologian Peter Abelard and a writer, leader and thinker in her own right?

Completely new to me before I read Femina were the Loftus Princess, the Birka Warrior woman and Queen Jadwiga of Poland. I was absolutely delighted to find out about them and to know that they were treated with great honour and respect by their communities. 

Hildegard of Bingen was one person I already had some familiarity with. What an inspiring figure! Her accomplishments in leadership, music, letters, philosophy, medicine (as Femina informed me), theology and spirituality are outstanding. To be effective in one of these fields is good, to be exceptional in so many seems beyond mortal attainment. I am blessed that Ramirez extended my acquaintance with such a brilliant woman. However there is one part of her description which jarred, when she says that Hildegard was a “woman writing for women.” She clearly intended to write for everybody! Surely she saw her visions as intended for the whole of Christendom? Her letters to the Pope demonstrate that she thought her views belong to all humanity.

Also known to me were Hilda of Whitby, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, and the embroiderers of the Bayeux tapestry. I find it hard to be a fan of MK, and I’ve got to say that, while acknowledging its importance as a vital historical source, I just cannot share Ramirez’s evaluation of the Bayeux Tapestry as a major work of art. It is crude, lumpy and misshapen, the people are expressionless, the text is messy and all the penises and severed limbs have a year 7 look about them. The exquisite illuminations in manuscripts of the era show just how refined and impressive medieval art can be. Julian of Norwich is a gem though, as most people seem to agree. 

Ramirez brings out an unavoidable point in her comments on Hilda, Julian, Kempe and Hildegarde: it was the Church that provided the arena in which women could escape from childbirth, housework and fieldwork, and gain education, independence, meaningful employment, leadership roles, the life of the mind and significant artistic power. We have been so blinded by a narrative that condemns the Church as backward and oppressive that we don’t see the opportunities it provided. Ramirez herself follows this lazy, me-too approach when she dismisses the Bible, in a completely non-nuanced way, as misogynistic. The Bible’s assertions that male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free are all one in Christ, were millennia ahead of their time.

Let’s face it, the vast majority of us, female and male, live lives of total obscurity and sadly are swiftly forgotten. We don’t always need to see a conspiracy behind every example of what is the common lot of almost every one of us. 

Another area where I felt uneasy was in the balance between texts and archaeological objects. Ramirez has a very modern suspicion of texts because they are likely to follow the biases of their narrators. She is much happier with objects because they can’t tell lies. However the reason they can’t tell lies is because they can’t actually tell that much: in the absence of text, the interpretation of objects is left up to us, and we of course inevitably bring our own narratives and prejudices to bear. For example, without any text we don’t know why a prominent Scandinavian woman was buried with a whole lot of battle goods. Could it be that she was a battle hardened warrior? Of course it could be – but it could also be that her tribe was merely following their custom for burials of the chieftain’s family. Or perhaps they intended some kind of protection for her in the afterlife. Maybe she was supposed to pass the weapons on to others who had predeceased her, but whose bodies were not recovered from the battlefield. Without any text, we just cannot know what their intentions were. It is only in text that the minds of people of the distant past can be made known to us.

For the women who really light up Femina for us are those, like Margery Kempe and Hildegard, whose personalities, thoughts and experiences have come down to us in writing. Ideally of course we would have both objects and texts to corroborate and throw fresh light upon one another. But without text our knowledge of Julian of Norwich, say, is all but a blank. With it, she lives and breathes before us and speaks deep wisdom to us. 

I am now going to invite controversy by asking some questions of Ramirez’s feminism. One passage that baffled me was a comparison between Alfred the Great and his daughter Aethelflaed, who married the king of Mercia and was co-ruler of that kingdom. In this comparison we are told that  Aethelflaed was the better ruler of the two, and if not for historical prejudices against women this would be an acknowledged fact. I just don’t understand why it’s a contest? I have no doubt that Aethelflaed was an able and astute leader, but then Alfred was also effective in a number of fields, including law, administration, literature and theology. How exactly do his achievements diminish hers? I don’t have access to their personal interactions, but I wish to hope that as father and daughter they were very proud of each other and took pleasure in each other’s successes. Unfortunately Ramirez doesn’t present us with her evidence for asserting that one of them should be seen as superior to the other, and I think in a work of history we should expect her to do this.

Another concerns Ramirez’ eagerness to identify women of the past as warriors. There certainly have been female warriors from time to time – Boudicca is a few centuries before the era surveyed in Femina – and by the law of averages there will always be some women who are larger, stronger and tougher than most men, and some men who are smaller, weaker and feebler than most women. However is there not a case for a feminism that looks to women to promote wisdom rather than warfare and compassion rather than carnage? I’m reminded of a brand of New York feminism that demands that women be equally represented with men in the ranks of billionaires and CEOs of blue chip companies. But these people are the ones who are pillaging the planet with their greed, destroying civil life with their toxic masculine games and converting education into a conveyor belt to feed the money machines. Couldn’t there be a feminism that challenges these coercive, mechanistic and dehumanising values?

I was also dubious about Ramirez’ support for gender fluidity in medieval times. I don’t know much about the subject but the instances she cites, of a tiny figurine of Odin supposedly wearing a dress and a story about Thor impersonating the goddess Freya don’t cut it for me. It’s hard to be sure what such a miniaturised Odin is wearing, looks like a surcoat to me, perhaps of chain mail. And the story about Thor and Freya reads like an extended joke about the stupidity of the Giants, who want Freya to marry their king and are taken in by Thor’s ridiculous subterfuge. I think she needs to give more evidence if she wants her position to be accepted. More than that though, it seems naïve in our times, when the fluidity agenda is so often used against women, to propose that it may be a good thing for feminism.

So – am I a feminist? As a follower of Jesus Christ I distrust all -isms. They represent a deification of some persons or principles over others which may lead on to disastrous idolatries. They form ideologies which limit people’s thinking, excuse their bigotries, create barriers between people and set them in conflict with one another. For example, I believe in communities, but I distrust communism, which historically has only replaced one set of Czars with another. I believe in humanity, but humanism has been wrenched from its Christian roots and now indicates mainly negative beliefs about the nature and destiny of human beings. I love my nation, but nationalism became an idol that has devoured millions of people in the last couple of centuries. I love many traditions - they give people a sense of roots - but traditionalism denies the present and the future in its fixation on the past. And so on. I distrust rationalism but I absolutely believe in reason. I accept and enjoy the reality of material things, but materialism, the belief that nothing except what is material can be allowed to exist, I find untenable…

So I believe in women. I wouldn’t exist without women. I have a wife, a daughter and a granddaughter and I am serious about promoting their welfare, wanting them to do well and fulfil their potential. When women do well, everybody benefits, men and women too, as has been demonstrated repeatedly by programmes for lifting people out of poverty. I detest misogyny, which is a dismal refuge for inadequate and fearful men. Of course women should have equal rights and equal value with men in society. I love women’s creativity, humour, resourcefulness, insight, wisdom and strength.

That is why, in spite of my quibbles, I am grateful to Janina Ramirez for sharing her stories of inspiring women in this book.