The Empire of Climate

"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year"
"Livingstone’s book is striking in its ambition to narrate a wide-ranging history of the most significant political issue facing global humanity since 1945 . . . This approach makes for compelling reading and a major contribution to our overall understanding of the historical background to the current environmental crises."---James Cullis, History of European Ideas
"A monumental work of scholarship, representing and reflecting a life-time's research by one of the most important historical geographers of his generation. David Livingstone has been working on issues of environmental determinism, acclimatisation and empire for almost forty years. This book brings that important scholarship together to consider how climate-society relations have been understood in several key arenas over long periods of time and across diverse geographical contexts."---Simon Naylor, Journal of Historical Geography
"Impressive and encyclopedic. . . . With the convergence of the climate crisis and right-wing populism around the world, xenophobic ecofascism will likely have appeal, drawing on, as Livingstone has assiduously demonstrated, a long legacy. Much work remains to be done. Science journalists—and all of us—should take note."---Samuel Dolbee, H-Net Reviews
"An invaluable starting point for geographers, historians and those within and beyond the academy interested in the long history – and present and future – of assigning historical causality to climate. Frankly, this needs to be all of us."---Lachlan Fleetwood, Climates and Cultures in History
"Given the growing threat that climate change poses for the future of humanity, Livingstone’s magisterial survey of historical ideas about climate’s impact on individuals and societies could not be more timely or cautionary."---Dane Kennedy, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"Deeply impressive. . . . The Empire of Climate is essential reading. It is a stunning achievement."---Philip Jenkins, Christian Century
"An extremely rich scholarly interrogation of the ways in which climate as an idea, has been adopted and adapted in the pursuit of particular goals, to justify imperialism and geopolitical ambitions; to explain difference, whether this is in relation to race, ethnicity, gender, or place; to account for the rise of conflict; and, arguably, to displace or avert blame for more contemporary harms. . . . This is without a doubt a benchmark publication."---Georgina Endfield, AAG Review of Books
"David Livingstone’s The Empire of Climate: A Historyof an Idea provides a rich and detailed chronicle of how climate has been used to explain human civilization, from the 5th century BCE to the present day . . . [It] offers the best and most up-to-date overview of and introduction to a way of understanding the world that, despite having a long and inglorious past, may well have a long and influential future."---John Emrys Morgan, Ler História
"[A] sweeping chronicle. . . . Livingstone’s consummate analysis drives home how blaming people’s behavior on climate risks repeating the imperious and racist justifications for colonialism and slavery." * Publishers Weekly *
"[A] fascinating study. . . . Highly recommended." * Choice *
"Brilliant and multifaceted."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer