New Books Network Podcast Summary

Episode: Peter Frankopan, "The Earth Transformed: An Untold History" (Knopf, 2023)
Date: January 6, 2026
Host: Javier Mejia (Stanford University)
Guest: Peter Frankopan (Professor of Global History, University of Oxford)

Overview

In this episode, Javier Mejia interviews Peter Frankopan about his latest book, The Earth Transformed: An Untold History. The conversation explores how climate, environment, and scientific advances have shaped the course of global history—not just impacting elites and empires, but transforming the everyday existence of societies and shaping the destinies of entire continents. Frankopan elaborates on his career, the methodology behind bringing together mythological, scientific, and historical sources, and the challenges and possibilities in the study of global and environmental history.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Peter Frankopan’s Academic Journey and Motivations

• Seeking Relevance Beyond Traditional Narratives
  • Frankopan describes his initial dissatisfaction with conventional historical curricula, which he found detached from the pressing global anxieties of his youth, particularly the Cold War and ecological concerns.
  • Memorable moment with renowned historian Mary Beard, using a juxtaposition of Prince Charles and Emperor Augustus to challenge perceptions of historical figures.
    • "It was like being in a power station and someone flips on all the fuses that had gone off. And that moment made me understand what history is all about." (06:09, Frankopan)
  • Emphasizes the role of chance and being "in the right place at the right time" in his career.
• Focus Shift to Overlooked Regions
  • Early interest in the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, Iran—and the long period when these regions were marginalized in Western historiography.
  • Noted the recent global events that have brought these overlooked areas into sharper relevance.

2. The Interdisciplinary Approach in "The Earth Transformed"

• Blending Mythology, Science, and History
  • Opens the book referencing the myth of Adam and Eve to illustrate ancient human anxieties about environment and survival.
  • Advocates for integrating diverse sources, from genetics to climatology, to expand the historical lens.
  • Addresses the challenge in academia: "When you publish something... you lose control of it immediately... You become the animal that gets hunted down by everybody else who wants to define things..." (11:40, Frankopan)
  • Critiques the gatekeeping and exclusivity persistent in historical faculties, questioning the concept of "global history."

3. The State of the Academic Field

• Gatekeeping and Exclusivity
  • Frankopan criticizes the predominantly Western focus of academic history departments: “93% of history faculty work on the history of the West...” (14:39, Frankopan)
  • Calls for greater inclusion of regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and the steppes into global narratives.
• Periodization and Specialization
  • Observes that narrow specialization makes it hard for scholars to write across historical periods—an endeavor Frankopan considers the responsibility of established academics.
• Humanities and Sciences: The Growing Divide
  • Suggests that modern historians will increasingly need to be conversant with plant sciences, genetics, and data analysis:
    • "My current PhD crop are the last generation of historians who'll be able to write a PhD without being able to include materials from genetic sampling around population for migrate." (25:47, Frankopan)
  • Argues for mandatory cross-training in scientific methods for historians.

4. Optimism and Challenges in the Field

• Diversity and Early-Career Scholars
  • Frankopan highlights barriers for early-career researchers, especially regarding funding, diversity, and inclusion:
    • "The single biggest problem... is early career scholars, because we can't get them onto the ladder." (22:13, Frankopan)
  • Critiques the infrastructural rigidity that prevents genuine global or inclusive history from flourishing.
• Importance of Liberal Arts and Cross-Disciplinary Training
  • Both guest and host champion the value of a liberal arts framework, integration with sciences, and the need to engage students beyond traditional professional tracks.

5. Interpreting Societal Collapse and Continuity

• Challenging Pessimism
  • Frankopan disputes the elite-centered, apocalyptic reading of "collapse":
    • "For the 80% of the population who are agricultural field workers, what does collapse mean?...Is your lot better if you're...liberated from exploitation?" (29:37, Frankopan)
  • Argues that transformations—whether stemming from catastrophe or gradual change—affect societies in complex, non-binary ways.
• Transformation vs. Catastrophe
  • Differentiates between "thunderclap" events (e.g., volcanic eruptions, pandemics) and slow, cumulative declines:
    • "It's not usually that empires go out like Darth Vader does in Star Wars... It's always about SAG and it's always about trying to put bags of sand against the flood as it comes." (35:00, Frankopan)
  • Warns against compressing diverse historical experiences into single narratives of rise and fall.

6. Technology: Solution or False Hope?

• Frankopan’s Measured Skepticism
  • Frankopan indicates skepticism toward the widely held belief (especially in Silicon Valley) that technology alone will solve environmental crises:
    • "I suspect being a very boring historian, they'll [technologies] offer slightly odd solutions... and in some cases will make something worse because that's how things tend to work." (42:25, Frankopan)
  • Notes historically, technological and political optimism often failed to prevent, and sometimes exacerbated, crises.
  • Cites COVID-19 vaccine distribution inequality as a warning model for future technological solutions to global problems.
  • Observes: "If you learn one thing about history, the people who build the temples and have the biggest palaces and build walls are never the guys at the bottom of the social and economic heap." (47:38, Frankopan)

Notable Quotes

• On History’s Purpose:
  "My job as a historian is not to forecast the future, but simply to explain how we got to where we are."
  — Peter Frankopan (09:15)

• On Methodological Gatekeeping:
  "We do gatekeep as historians. We're very protective about methodology, about how we think we should be addressing things, and we're quite hectoring about telling each other what we should be doing."
  — Peter Frankopan (21:29)

• On Societal Collapse and Perspective:
  "Societal collapse depends on who that's, who that's for. And because we focus on elites... we tend not to think about things from below."
  — Peter Frankopan (29:37)

• On Transformation:
  "Transformation to me is a really important word because it allows for flexibility to fit all of these things rather than have a single cookie cutter, you know, model..."
  — Peter Frankopan (38:13)

• On Techno-Optimism:
  "Technology will come to the aid in lots of ways. It's whether it'll come quickly and also who it'll come to... I'm pretty cynical about that."
  — Peter Frankopan (46:00)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:56] Peter Frankopan’s educational background and influences
• [09:16] Discussing the relationship between academic history and the broader public
• [11:33] Integrating mythological and scientific evidence, academic gatekeeping
• [14:39] Academic focus on the west and issues with Eurocentrism
• [16:07] Challenges of specialization and periodization in academic history
• [21:29] Historians as methodological gatekeepers
• [22:12] Problems for early-career and non-traditional scholars
• [25:41] Necessity of scientific literacy for future historians
• [29:28] Rethinking societal collapse from below
• [34:06] Distinction between rapid shocks and gradual change in history
• [39:00] The promise and limits of technology as a response to environmental challenges
• [42:17] Comparing technological optimism with historical reality; inequalities in solutions
• [47:38] Who benefits from technological progress?
• [49:17] The enduring public interest in complex and serious history

Tone and Final Thoughts

Frankopan’s tone is reflective, candid, and generous—critical of the field’s insularity but optimistic about the transformative (pun intended) potential of public-facing scholarship and cross-disciplinary curiosity. He urges historians to embrace scientific literacy and to remain vigilant against the easy narratives of collapse and salvation, especially as technological and environmental transformations accelerate. The episode is intellectually rich and accessible—a call to rethink not only how we write history, but for whom.

End Note

For listeners seeking to understand how climate, environment, and history intertwine—beyond the headlines and beyond the West—this conversation offers both sweeping perspective and nuanced caution, all delivered in a spirit of intellectual adventure.