From solar storms to asteroid impacts, the untold story of how environmental change throughout the cosmos shaped human history.
Our solar system is a dynamic place where asteroids careen off course and solar winds hurl charged particles across billions of miles of space. Yet we seldom consider how these events, so immense in scale, influence our comparatively minuscule corner of the cosmos: planet Earth.
In Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean, Dagomar Degroot traces the surprising threads linking human endeavor to the rest of the solar system. He shows how variability in planetary environments shaped geopolitics, spurred scientific and cultural innovation, and encouraged new ideas about the emergence and ultimate fate of life. Martian dust storms altered the trajectory of the Cold War and inspired fantastical stories about alien civilizations. Comet impacts on Jupiter led to the first planetary defense strategy. And volcanic eruptions spewed sulfuric acid into Venus's atmosphere, exposing the existential risks of climate change at home.
In the dawning era of space settlement, cosmic environments are becoming increasingly vulnerable to human activity. They may also hold the key to slowing the destruction of environments on Earth. Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean asks what it will take to develop an interplanetary environmentalism across a vast mosaic of entangled worlds.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean brings us a new arena of history, the history of our collective engagement with our planetary neighbors in the inner solar system. Dagomar Degroot has constructed an amazing synthesis of how cultural projections, and gradually the observational sciences, have brought the environmental histories of the Sun, the Moon, Venus, Mars, and the asteroids into sharper and sharper focus. Simultaneously, Degroot shows how our explorations of environments in the inner solar system have illuminated the critical features of our home planet Earth. This is a book that will be widely read as we grapple both with our emerging efforts to inhabit near-earth environments and with the pressing problem of planetary sustainability here on Earth. -- John L. Brooke, author of <i>Climate Change and the Course of Global History</i> Dagomar Degroot has boldly taken environmental history where no historian has gone before. In this beautifully written and handsomely illustrated book, Degroot shows how dynamic components of the solar system have affected both earthly environments and human ideas over the last five centuries. Part history of astronomy and astronomers, part super-macro environmental history, the book brims over with both interesting anecdotes and arresting perspectives on our place within the cosmos. -- J. R. McNeill, author of <i>The Webs of Humankind</i> A beautifully illustrated and flowing account of the place of our world in the vastness of the cosmos. Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean offers a stark warning about the interplanetary hazards our world faces, but it also offers hope: about our potential to explore the cosmic high seas and our potential to save our own little island. Degroot sets some awesome challenges, but he opens up some liberating possibilities. -- John Haldon, author of <i>The Empire That Would Not Die</i> Dagomar Degroot takes readers on an engrossing journey through the solar system and the history of astronomy, uncovering the dynamic and often unexpected ways outer space has shaped Earth's environment and human history. In this sweeping account, Degroot redefines our understanding of our home planet-not as an isolated world, but as one deeply entangled with the cosmos. -- Teasel Muir-Harmony, author of <i>Operation Moonglow</i>
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Zielgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Fadenheftung
Gewebe-Einband
Illustrationen
15 photos, 39 color photos, 3 color ills.
Maße
Höhe: 235 mm
Breite: 156 mm
Dicke: 20 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-674-98650-3 (9780674986503)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Dagomar Degroot is Associate Professor of Environmental History at Georgetown University. A contributor to the Washington Post, Nature, and Aeon, he is the author of The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age, and the Dutch Republic, 1560-1720, named one of the ten best history books of 2018 by the Financial Times.
