Author:Anthony Smith
Our weather is changing, almost everyone agrees. But what really lies behind this? Very few of us understand that we live on a planet, and that the way our planet operates largely dictates our weather. Only when we know some surprising global fundamentals can we discover what is genuinely new and what is cyclical about today's weather - and what we can do about it. In a magnificent mixture of scientific fact, personal apprehension, global experience and intriguing revelation, the distinguished science writer, Anthony Smith, takes us on a tour of our world, showing in a new light what we often take for granted. Within this framework all the disturbing contemporary manifestations of our weather - global warming, ozone depletion, glacial retreat, drought, rising sea levels, the disruption of currents such as el Ni-o - and even catastrophes such as major volcanic eruptions and meteor impact - make more sense. And through it he tackles today's most urgent question: are we truly altering basic weather patterns to the detriment of life on Earth?
Lucid...fast-moving...skillful
—— Literary ReviewEnthusiastic, informed and racy, this is one of the most invigorating accounts of the exploits of people from an age whose intrepidity is staggering
—— Scotland on SundayExcellent
—— Daily TelegraphTheodore Zeldin's all-embracing history of our feelings throughout the ages [is] brilliantly original and unsettling... His scope is dazzling... A seductive and unusually thought provoking book
—— Sunday TelegraphBubbling wit... Zeldin makes life exciting for the reader. It is like being on some careering fair-ground ride that whirls you from one limelit fragment of civilisation to the next at breakneck speed...gatecrashing all the cultures of the world
—— SpectatorIt's the sort of book that will go on being famous long after we're all dead... If ever a volume deserved that overused ecomium "this book will change your life", it is this one
—— Oxford Today'Exhilarating'
—— Melvyn Bragg , Observer'As enthralling in its own way as was Darwin's original'
—— Kenan Malik , Independent on Sunday