Origins

Histories usually center on rulers, population movements and battles. Dartnell asks a different question: how did the planet itself steer the course of human lives? Our species has been molded by its surroundings, from the geological upheavals that shaped early life in East Africa to the rugged landscape of ancient Greece that helped give rise to democracy. Even modern American voting patterns can be traced to the floor of a long-vanished sea. The account takes in plate tectonics, shifting climates, air currents and ocean circulation.

The book follows a chain of links that runs from the Himalayas to the orbit of the Earth and on to the making of the British Isles. Reaching back billions of years, it traces the deepest origins of the world we inhabit. Where history meets science, a dense network of connections emerges, one that underpins the modern world and bears on the challenges ahead.

Moving from the first cultivated crops to the rise of nation-states, the book shows how the planet's enormous influence has shaped human civilizations.