Showing titles in Environment

How the Earth Works takes you on an astonishing journey through time and space. In 48 lectures, you will look at what went into making our planet - from the big bang, to the formation of the solar system, to the subsequent evolution of Earth.

Before the 18th century, every single nutmeg in the world originated around a group of small volcanic islands east of Java, known as the Banda Islands. As the nutmeg made its way across the known world, they became immensely valuable - in 16th century Europe, just a handful could buy a house. It...

Brought to you by Penguin. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize and The Quest reveals how climate battles and energy revolutions are mapping our future A new type of Cold War is emerging between China and the West. . The global order is being simultaneously shaken by climate change and...

Madhav Gadgil was born in Pune in 1942, just as Salim Ali's superbly illustrated Book of Indian Birds was published. Influenced by his birdwatcher father, he learnt to recognize birds from their pictures even before he could read. He is an unusual combination of a person fascinated by the...

Brought to you by Penguin. An eye-opening account of the tech arms race shaping out planet, from an award-winning journalist and AI insider to the world of Sam Altman and OpenAI When longtime AI expert and journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good...

In The Earth Transformed, ground-breaking historian Peter Frankopan shows that engagement with the natural world and with climatic change and their effects on us are not new: exploring, for instance, the development of religion and language and their relationships with the environment; tracing how growing demands for harvests resulted in the increased shipment of enslaved peoples; scrutinising how the desire to centralise agricultural surplus formed the origins of the bureaucratic state; and seeing how efforts to understand and manipulate the weather have a long history.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku, read by Feodor Chin. Human civilization is on the verge of spreading beyond Earth. More than a possibility, it is becoming a necessity: whether our hand is forced by climate change and resource depletion or whether...

Brought to you by Penguin. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's...

Wild Fictions brings together Amitav Ghosh's extraordinary writings on subjects that have obsessed him over the last twenty-five years: literature and language; climate change and the environment; human lives, travel and discoveries. The spaces that we inhabit, and the manner in which we occupy...

Brought to you by Penguin. Shortlisted for the Best Nonfiction Audiobook at the New York Festival Radio Awards 2020. A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2019 WINNER OF THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020 'You'd be crazy not to read this book' The Sunday...

Brought to you by Penguin. A legendary conservationist. A lifetime spent fighting for nature. An indispensable message of hope. The world-renowned naturalist and conservationist Jane Goodall has spent more than a half-century warning of our impact on our planet. From her famous encounters with...

Most historians study the smallest slivers of time, emphasizing specific dates, individuals, and documents. But what would it look like to study the whole of history, from the big bang through the present day - and even into the remote future? How would looking at the full span of time change the way we perceive the universe, the earth, and our very existence? These were the questions David Christian set out to answer when he created the field of "Big History", the most exciting new approach to understanding where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.

To better put into perspective the various issues surrounding energy in the 21st century, you need to understand the essential science behind how energy works. And you need a reliable source whose focus is on giving you the facts you need to form your own educated opinions.

Call it "Zen and the Art of Farming" or a "Little Green Book", Masanobu Fukuoka's manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book "is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical."

In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization and offers listeners a magisterial overview of humanity's energy eras.

Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space.

Pre-order Ray Nayler's brand-new speculative historical thriller Palaces of the Crow, coming soon! 'I loved this novel's brain and heart' DAVID MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS 'A first-rate speculative thriller, by turns fascinating, brutal, powerful, and redemptive' JEFF VANDERMEER, AUTHOR OF...

Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability - at the level of literature, history, and politics - to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.

Brought to you by Penguin. From celebrated writer Robert Macfarlane comes this brilliant, perspective-shifting new book – which answers a resounding yes to the question of its title. At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings...

* LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025 * * WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2026 * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE CLIMATE FICTION PRIZE * * WINNER OF THE ATWOOD GIBSON WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE * * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES, BBC, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, GOOD...