Fear: An Alternative History of the World

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'Extraordinary' Ai Weiwei

'Brilliant' Simon Schama

Fear has long been a driving force - perhaps the driving force - of world history: a coercive tool of power and a catalyst for radical change. Here, Robert Peckham traces its transformative role over a millennium, from fears of famine and war to anxieties over God, disease, technology and financial crises.

In a landmark global history that ranges from the Black Death to the terror of the French Revolution, the AIDS pandemic to climate change, Peckham reveals how fear made us who we are, and how understanding it can equip us to face the future.

Reviews

'Compelling' - Economist

'An ambitious deep dive into history' - Irish Independent

'[An] elegant synthesis of centuries of intellectual history ... Peckham's mapping of fear across centuries of thought offers an opportunity to reflect on a persistent political geography of anxiety' - Lancet

'Clear and engaging ... readers keen to grasp a better understanding of the history of the world will be entranced by Peckham's ability to communicate complex political, religious, economic, artistic, medical, military, technological and cultural trends' - BBC History Magazine

'Brilliant and breathtakingly wide-ranging ... As Peckham shows in gripping and beautifully written detail, fear isn't just the stock in trade of wicked despots; in some circumstances it can be turned to positive effect. Could it, now, be that fear is our friend Read Peckham and judge for yourself.' - Simon Schama

Author Bio

Robert Peckham is a cultural historian and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The founder of Open Cube, which promotes the integration of the humanities with the sciences and technology, he was previously Professor of History and M.B. Lee Endowed Professor in the Humanities and Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. He has held fellowships at Cambridge, Oxford, LSE and King's College London. He lives in New York.