The Vortex: An Environmental History of the Modern World

by Frank Uekötter

Environmental challenges are defining the twenty-first century. To fully understand ongoing debates about our current crises—climate change, loss of biological diversity, pollution, extinction, resource woes—means revisiting their origins, in all their complexity. With this ambitious, highly original contribution to the environmental history of global modernity, Frank Uekötter considers the many ways humans have had an impact on their physical environment throughout history. Ours is not a one-way trajectory to sudden collapse, he argues, but rather death by a thousand cuts. The many paths we’ve forged to arrive in our current predicament, from agriculture to industry to infrastructure, must be considered collectively if we are to stay afloat in what Uekötter describes as a a powerful metaphor for the flow of history, capturing the momentum and the many crosscurrents that swept people and environments along. His book invites us to look at environmental challenges from multiple perspectives, including all the twists and turns that have helped to create the mess we find ourselves in. Uekötter has written a world history for an age where things are falling where we know what lies ahead and are equipped with the right tools—technological and otherwise—and plenty of experience to deal with environmental challenges, but somehow fail to get our affairs in order. 

Genres: History, Science

848 pages, Hardcover

Published April 18, 2023

Reviews

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dubious book on a grand topic.

Each chapter has an overarching theme. The way it works, in chapter on Canal du Midi you will learn precious little about the canal; the canal serves only as a springboard to an endless string of anecdotes regarding similar projects, often separated by hundreds of years and thousands of miles. Many chapters consist of nothing else. Where I previously studied specialist treatments, I was left wondering if the author is really on top of his game. At best, the author drops many names and concepts in rapid fire succession, leaving the reader to the tender mercies of his search engine; at worst, his scattered and shallow remarks have simply nothing to do with any environmental issues or any science at all.

Avoid.

[The Inquisitive Biologist · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Vortex is an ambitious and edifying environmental history book that tells how we got to today's planetary predicament using forty detailed and nuanced snapshots. Read my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2023...