For the rag-tag-and-bobtail amateur historian, intent only on cherry-picking those tiny details that will spark an idea for a plot or flesh out a scene set two thousand years before, there is no greater gift than a good index. Here is one such. In preparation for writing the fourth Eye of Isis novel I went immediately to the back of the book and looked up Egypt. The very first entry was ‘branding of slaves, 179.” Back to page 179 I went, where I found

Common ideas evolved about beliefs and practices too. For example, tattooing has long been practised in human history, with cases in the Tyrolean Alps and the Chinchorro culture in South America and references in Chinese texts such as the Shang Shu revealing that tattooing on bodies was not only known across continents but dates back thousands of years. Over time, however, tattoos became indicators of something different. In Chinese societies, tattooing was thought of as something done by barbarians and not by ‘civilised’ people. Further west, however, it became synonymous with slavery specifically. Prisoners of war, captiaves and enslaved peoples in Egypt and Mesopotamia were branded with the name of the religious sect of their owner…Greeks who were captured during the wars against the Persians in the fifth century BC were tattooed by their captors, something that Athenians and others did to those they vanquished in the Aegean and as far away as Sicily.

Really. As far away as Sicily. Hmm. Possibly even as far away as…Alexandria. After all, Alexandria was founded and built by Greeks, in the footsteps of the Pharaohs, who definitely brought home more than their share of captives from foreign wars–they brag about it in carved murals on the sides of their temples. Slavery was alive and well in 47 BC, pirates made a living off it, and then there was that little titbit of information I ran across somewhere else that the Roman troops in Alexandria under Gabinius got pissed when they weren’t paid and started pillaging and plundering the surrounding countryside to supply their wants. I read elsewhere how Caesar was always so anxious to grab as much loot and land as he could because he was always in arrears with his own troops.

So it could not have been a very long step for disaffected Roman troops to move into, say, piracy, ransom, and trafficking in slaves, who in my fevered imagination would be tattooed with the number of the legion to which their captors belonged. Bet you a denarius that happened.

There is of course much more to this history than a paragraph in chapter 8. Frankopan has undertaken the ambitious task of chronicling global warming, its effect on humanity, and more importantly humanity’s effect on it. If you weren’t already a believer in climate change when you picked up this book you would be by the time you reached his conclusion. To save your sanity I recommend you skip over the quotes from Lord Frost, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump et al, but here’s Frankopan’s precis just so you know:

…the message was clear: renewable energy, climate change, and concerns about the future need not be taken seriously.

Frankopan writes, “Indeed, in some respects, the human story of progress is about batons being repeatedly dropped and picked up by others.” And the single biggest threat we face on the planet is not the first one you think of: volcanoes. As someone who lives across an 80-mile stretch of water from four active volcanoes, two of which have erupted four or five times in the last 18 years, I believe him. (And imagine the thrill of discovery I felt when I read herein that the Okmok eruption in Alaska in 43 BC contributed to the downfall of Cleopatra and the acquisition of Egypt by Rome.)

But the news isn’t all bad. Fossil fuels are, yes, slowly but inexorably being supplanted by renewable energy all over the world. Frankopan errs on the side of caution in his conclusion, however.

…we are living well beyond out means. At present, ‘we would require 1.6 Earths to maintain the world’s current living standards’, an assessment that reveals critical shortcomings in how little thought and how little action has gone into tackling problems that reveal ‘deep-rooted, widespread institutional failure’…’it will be nature, rather than human action, that ultimately brings net emissions towards zero.’ It will do so through catastrophic depopulation, whether through hunger, disease or conflict. With fewer of us around to burn fuel, cut down forests and tear minerals from the earth’s crust, the human footprint may become drastically reduced–and we will move closer to the sustainable, lush paradise of our fantasied past. Perhaps we will find our way back there through peaceful means; a historian would not bet on it.

Way to end a book, dude.

A dense narrative populated with a lot of detail, sobering and chilling by turns. I skipped some because I’m already among the converted (I read Brian Fagan’s The Little Ice Age years ago) but a reality check nonetheless. This one stays on my book shelf for future reference. Recommended.

Book Review Monday Chatter climate change global warming Peter Frankopan The Earth Transformed