You have to hand it to Tim Flannery – when he writes a book, he tries to keep his subject tightly focused on an easily manageable subject, such as the ecological history of North America and the people living there, or the natural history of planet Earth as a whole. I jest, of course, for all who know of Flannery’s work, either as an author or during his twelve-year-long tenure as Australia’s climate commissioner, know that nothing he does is done on a small scale.
Thus no one should be surprised to learn that in his most recently published book (his twentieth by my count) he takes up the natural history of Europe. Titled, logically enough, Europe; A Natural History, Flannery begins 100 million years ago – give or take a century or so – in the past and unravels the ecological processes from that time up to the present that have made the continent and it’s inhabitants both what they have been and have come to be.
Europe; A Natural History was published by Grove Atlantic on 5 February 2019. Look for a full review to be published here in the near future.
