Two new books hit the shelves: One to grab and one to shun

One to grab

History books are often dry, turgid and quickly thrown aside. Few will turf the new book, “Rise and Fall: A History of the World in Ten Empires” into the bin. Paul Strathern’s work is brilliantly readable and illuminating.

^{Paul Strathern}

The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party would do well to ponder some of what is in the book. Strathern quotes the twentieth-century author Paul Kriwaczek:

Empires based solely on power and domination, while allowing their subjects to do as they will, can last for centuries. Those that try to control the everyday lives of their people are harder to sustain.

Strathern is a former lecturer in philosophy and mathematics at Kingston University, who has written many books on science, history, philosophy and literature. Studied in his 2019 book are the Akkadian, Roman, Umayyad and Abbasid, Mongol, Yuan, Aztec, Ottoman, British, Russian and American Empires.

Every chapter contains thought-provoking insights that only the most well-read will already know. On the Yuan Empire he discusses the terracotta army guarding the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, who founded the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC. Qin is pronounced “Chin” and is generally recognised as the origin of the name China. Strathern quotes Sima Qian, the father of Chinese history:

The First Emperor Qin Shi Huang was buried with palaces, towers, officials, valuable artefacts and wondrous objects. . . 100 flowing rivers were simulated using mercury. . .

Qin’s terracotta army consists of 8000 soldiers, 130 chariots and 670 horses. Strathern posits that now high levels of mercury have been found in the hill-sized mausoleum mound there may still be many “palaces, towers . . . valuable artefacts and wondrous objects” still to be discovered. “. . . The very existence of this unprecedented collection remained a secret from the outset, with its creators being put to death.”

One to avoid at all costs

Don’t invest your money in Michael Shellenberger’s new “Apocalpse Never: Why Environmentalism Alarmism Hurts Us All” (hardback $300). Many will agree with Shellenberger’s thesis: climate change is overblown, its advocates are overwrought and they are scarying us into anxiety and depression with bogus claims, quoting “scientists say” without identifying them. Left-wing media churn it out damn near daily. Here’s another photo of a sad-looking polar bear on a shrinking ice floe.

^{Michael Shellenberger}

“Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for more than a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 per cent over the last four decades. And the risk of the Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas.”

Many people who take a sceptical view of man-made climate change — “the more dodgy the facts the more passionate the advocates”– will agree with points Shellenger makes in his book. But you will soon tire of it and biff it in the bin: it’s a self-hagiography by Michael Shellenberger, about Michael Shellenberger and for Michael Shellenberger.