* Thank you to Profile Books, who sent me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Fear: An Alternative History of the World by Robert Peckhman, details how specific events such as catastrophes, plagues and pandemics, have caused fear and become a driving force throughout history. And, how fear is a coercive tool of power and a catalyst for radical change. Peckhman traces its transformative role from fears of famine, war and religion, to terrorism, natural disasters, politics, revolutions, and dictatorships. The book also includes modern fears such as financial crashes, technology hacks, and epidemics that have happened in living memory; such as AIDS, through to present-day pandemics like Covid - which we are still trying to understand.
Fear takes us from Pre-reformation Europe to
twenty-first-century China; and looks at how past events have inherently shaped
our current fears and the connection we have to our ancestors through fearing the
same things. The book examines how far people have gone to prevent their
greatest fears from occurring, such as how Inca children were sacrificed as
offerings by their elders to ‘prevent’ volcanoes from erupting. And it explains what fear is, by looking at the psychological and physiological
processes of this emotional state.
Peckhman writes that his book is more than just a ‘Greatest
Hits’ compilation of historical fears. He is ‘interested in what fear has meant
to individuals and societies in the past, as well as how events have shaped
what we think about fear and its uses.’ Fear has been manipulated by
those in power as a scaremongering tool throughout history, and the author shines a light on how we can possibly avoid this in the future, or at the very least be
aware of it.
While the content of this book is at times confronting (many
of my fears, and anxieties are included in this book) it was also oddly
comforting at times. It’s a reminder that the human race has experienced
everything before and survived many times – we are resilient. We can harness
our fears and use them. This was a truly fascinating read.
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