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Reading lists

Uplifting climate books to inspire hope about the planet’s future

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What to read if you loved Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time

Transcendence

* A TIMES BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR * 
 
From the prize-winning author of Adventures in the Anthropocene, the astonishing story of how culture enabled us to become the most successful species on Earth 
 
'A wondrous, visionary work' Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers 
 
Humans are a planet-altering force. Gaia Vince argues that our unique ability - compared with other species - to determine the course of our own destiny rests on a special relationship between our genes, environment and culture going back into deep time. It is our collective culture, rather than our individual intelligence, that makes humans unique. Vince shows how four evolutionary drivers - Fire, Language, Beauty and Time - are further transforming our species into a transcendent superorganism: a hyper-cooperative mass of humanity that she calls Homo omnis. Drawing on leading-edge advances in population genetics, archaeology, palaeontology and neuroscience, Transcendence compels us to reimagine ourselves, showing us to be on the brink of something grander - and potentially more destructive. 
 
'Richly informed by the latest research, Gaia Vince's colourful survey fizzes like a zip-wire as it tours our species' story from the Big Bang to the coming age of hypercooperation' Richard Wrangham, author of The Goodness Paradox 
 
'Wonderful ... enlightening' Robin Ince, The Infinite Monkey Cage

A hugely enjoyable sprint through human evolutionary history . . .  Read it.

Beautifully written . . . At her best Vince takes dizzying leaps, making connections between archaeology, anthropology, genetics and psychology. She is especially good on the delicate interplay between genes, environment and culture. Vince steps with lightness.

The storming success of Yuval Noah Harari's books has inspired many others that aim to span the epic sweep of human history with grand theories and cor-blimey factoids. This book does both.

Best Science and Medicine Books of the Year

Here is the miraculous creature we are: unlikely, poignant, astonishing ... Much to think about. This book gives rise to many such thoughts and is written with merciful clarity.

Richly informed by the latest research, Gaia Vince's colourful survey fizzes like a zip-wire as it tours our species' story from the Big Bang to the coming age of hypercooperation.

Richard Wrangham, Professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University and author of The Goodness Paradox

An imaginative and inspiring adventure into the origins and evolution of what we hold most dear: our human culture.

Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development UCL

This book goes from the Big Bang to the Hundred Thousand Genome Project to make a convincing case that Homo sapiens has become a super-organism. I learned a lot from it and so will you.

Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Human Genetics UCL, author of Almost Like a Whale

Gaia Vince is a science writer and broadcaster interested in the interplay between humans and the planetary environment. She has held senior editorial posts at Nature and New Scientist, and her writing has featured in newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, The Times and Scientific American. She also writes and presents science programmes for radio and television. Her research takes her across the world: she has visited more than 60 countries, lived in three and is currently based in London. In 2015, she became the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize solo for her debut, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made. She blogs at WanderingGaia.com and tweets at @WanderingGaia.

Humans are a planet-altering force. Our closest living relatives, the now-endangered chimpanzees, continue to live as they have for millions of years. Yet we evolved through the same process. What are we then? 
 
Gaia Vince argues that our unique ability to determine the course of our own destiny rests on a special relationship between our genes, environment and culture going back into deep time. It is our collective culture, rather than our individual intelligence, that makes humans unique. Vince shows how four evolutionary drivers - Fire, Language, Beauty and Time - are further transforming our species into a transcendent superorganism: a hyper-cooperative mass of humanity that she calls Homo omnis. Drawing on leading-edge advances in population genetics, archaeology, palaeontology and neuroscience, Transcendence compels us to reimagine ourselves, and shows us to be on the brink of something grander - and potentially more destructive.

A Journey to the Heart of the Planet we Made

Adventures in the Anthropocene

We are entering a new geological epoch -- the Anthropocene, or Age of Humans. Gaia Vince travelled the world to understand what this new age will mean for us, and future generations

An excellent book... Vince writes with great freshness and vigour, and her stories are hard to stop reading

It holds a mirror up to humanity and says: look what you have done to the world, the only world you will ever have... in every sense a good book, as well as a compelling read

A masterpiece... a wondrous, remarkable, but heart-rending story

A story of optimism about how 10 billion people can in future live together and prosper... Fresh and unencumbered, Vince glides from ecology to economics, politics to philosophy, seeing it all through the people she meets

Ambitious and provocative... brilliant

Philip Hoare, author of LEVIATHAN and THE SEA INSIDE

Vince's broader discussions of the biological and Earth science are as cogent as her close reportage

A beautifully human and optimistic book filled with stories of ordinary people who simply refuse to give up

A beautifully written book that raises the most profound question of our time: "How should we live?"  In the past, this has been primarily a personal question. But, as Gaia Vince amply demonstrates, what was once a personal question has become the central question for us as a species -- and the fate of nearly every species on our planet (including our own) rests on our answer.

Ken Caldeira, Professor of Environmental Earth Systems Sciences, Stanford University

A richly textured account of the post-wilderness years (and this year's winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books)

Ms Vince's focus on individuals and places helps ground the science in reality... [her] case studies are fascinating

I love this book. Gaia Vince effortlessly weaves individual stories into an epic, global narrative, to present us with a positive vision of a humane, brave new world

A fine and timely book.  Gaia Vince shows us how to stay steady and cheerful despite the ever intensifying drama of the Anthropocene

Fascinating, troubling and remarkably cool-headed

Gaia's remarkable journey is a unique inventory of life on earth, both wild and human, at this important moment in our history.

A brilliant book, full of examples of fighting back against climate change in unexpected and courageous ways

Tim Flannery, founder of The Climate Council, Australia; Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council

Gaia Vince discovers how ingenious individuals around the world cope with the consequences of environmental changes and sees how our relationship with the natural world have evolved over the centuries

Our species has exploded into a new kind of force – one species able to alter the physical, chemical and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale.  Gaia Vince’s important book provides the evolutionary, temporal and biophysical context to show with clarity the stunning speed and magnitude of the human footprint on the planet.  She manages to inspire with hope while conveying a cry of urgency.

David Suzuki, author of THE SACRED BALANCE

Have you seen the state of our planet? Gaia Vince has. She travelled the globe for two years to investigate what we are doing to it, and this heroic feat of reporting is the result. She, and her readers, are left wiser, sometimes sadder, but still holding on to a core optimism about possible futures for our world.

Jon Turney, author of THE ROUGH GUIDE TO THE FUTURE

A literal walk through the far reaches of our planet, a biosphere now governed as much by human activity as by the forces of nature. We should take heed of these hard won stories by Gaia Vince, and wise up

David Buckland, International Director, Cape Farewell

Makes it easier to look at the Earth’s future without pessimism, and is a delight to read for the science alone

This is a transformative book and will inspire all of its readers to think more carefully about the way we interact with the environment

A world tour of how our transformation of the planet is playing out on the ground

holds a mirror up to humanity and says: look what you have done to the world, the only world you will ever have… a compelling read

A travelogue that tries to explain the enormous changes occurring on Earth at the level of the individual citizen.

The book’s personal nature makes it a joy to read… Despite being densely filled with meticulously researched facts, it always flows like a good travel journal.

The book’s personal nature makes it a joy to read. Added to this is the book’s excellent structure, examining each habitat in turn…and looking at the solutions science might provide… Despite being densely filled with meticulously researched facts, it always flows like a good travel journal.

The writing is fluent… I think this is an important book, which shows us what we have done to our world and what we might have to do if we are to survive in it. This is a book for anyone who cares about the planet and the environment.

Perhaps the best book so far to trace the epoch’s impacts on the world’s poor, and the slow violence that climate change metes out to them.

Gaia Vince is a journalist and broadcaster specialising in science, the environment, and social issues. She was awarded the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, becoming the first solo female winner in the Prize’s history. She has been an editor at Nature Climate Change, Nature and New Scientist. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, The Times, Science, Scientific American, the American Scholar, International New York Times, BBC online Australian Geographic and the Australian. She also devises and presents science documentaries for radio and television. She blogs at WanderingGaia.com and tweets at @WanderingGaia.

** Winner of Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books 2015 ** 
 
We live in epoch-making times. The changes we humans have made in recent decades have altered our world beyond anything it has experienced in its 4.6 billion-year history. As a result, our planet is said to be crossing into the Anthropocene – the Age of Humans. 
 
 Gaia Vince decided to travel the world at the start of this new age to see what life is really like for the people on the frontline of the planet we’ve made. From artificial glaciers in the Himalayas to painted mountains in Peru, electrified reefs in the Maldives to garbage islands in the Caribbean, Gaia found people doing the most extraordinary things to solve the problems that we ourselves have created. 
 
 These stories show what the Anthropocene means for all of us – and they illuminate how we might engineer Earth for our future.

Gaia Vince

With the government's migration policy in such appalling disarray, Gaia Vince's Nomad Century has to be the most timely book of the year. Vince's calm, compassionate and authoritative explanation of the inevitability of migration is essential reading... There should be a copy on every desk in Whitehall

A tour de force... Nomad Century should be on the reading list of anyone and everyone in any position of power. It is not simply a future atlas of human geography showing where will be habitable and for how many, but a hard-hitting must-read on how we will need to live in the coming decades to secure the long-term survival of humankind

Essential, bold and clear-sighted... I have yet to read a book that takes the question of how to survive the coming decades more seriously

After a summer of climate catastrophes, not least the appalling floods that left a third of Pakistan under water at the end of August, now should be the moment to consider radical solutions

Engaging and constructive... Vince leaves the reader with more than a few sparks of hope

Gaia Vince's new book should be read not just by every politician, but by every person on the planet, because it lays out, much more clearly than any existing scientific assessment, the world we are creating through global heating... Passionate and powerful

Powerful... It holds much wisdom with which to tackle the challenges of our turbulent century... Nomad Century is a visionary book, an attempt to imagine how climate change might reshape our notions of what is politically possible

Nomad Century is a landmark work - terrifying in its message and urgency, but ultimately empowering in its conviction about a path forward. Gaia Vince lays bare the scale of the challenge before us, and the grand ideas that will be needed to meet it. We must be ready; this book shows us how

Once again Gaia Vince demonstrates that she is one of the finest science writers at work today

The climate crisis already has millions of people on the move, and that number will steadily grow higher till it breaks the political structures of the planet - unless, as the author suggests, we start now to remake those structures so they can cope, and indeed benefit, from the flow of humans that is now inevitable. An important and provocative start to a crucial conversation

This book is a rather astounding addition to a growing body of thought that suggests the twenty-first century is going to include, and even require, lots of human migration-and that handled correctly, this could be part of a good adaptation to the climate and biosphere crisis we are now entering.  What Vince gives us here is some cognitive mapping to understand the situation and see a way forward

Vince's perspectives and proposals are refreshing in a world where a Don't-Look-Up-style denial is solidly in place... If this book results in even a smidgeon more sympathy for the huge numbers of people being forced away from their homes, that will be a great thing

Nomad Century is the most important book I imagine I'll ever read. Gaia Vince calmly -- without drum-banging or hand-wringing -- sets forth likely consequences and end-of-century projections for our rapidly changing planet. It'll knock you flat. But before you hit the ground, she hands over an impressively detailed survival plan: supporting radical migration from newly uninhabitable regions, rethinking urban structures and food practices, restoring climate. The book is heavily researched, but Gaia's clean, intelligent prose propels the reader

Terrifying, yet strangely hopeful and immensely important. I'm not sure if you can 'love' a book about our precarious future but this is essential reading. Nomad Century brings together the two most pressing issues of our time: the climate emergency and migration. Every single one of us will be affected by this - and therefore we should all read this book. It's packed with facts, solutions and even some optimism ... so, yes, maybe I actually do 'love' it

Brilliant. The most far-sighted book on migration I have read. Gaia Vince doesn't waste a sentence. Read this to understand our future

Nomad Century will broaden your horizon when thinking about the biggest humanitarian crisis of known history. A passionate plea for humankind

Vince sounds the air raid siren for humanity, then offers a thrilling path forward. A harrowing then inspiring read

Rigorously researched, accessibly written and illuminating... Vince's book makes a persuasive case that we can meet the momentous tasks ahead

The UN's International Organisation for Migration predicts as many as 1.5 billion environmental migrants by 2050, with many fleeing drought, flood and wildfire. The coming together of two hot-button issues - the climate crisis and migration - is the basis for Nomad Century (Allen Lane) by Gaia Vince, an essential book on how humanity must adapt as the planet warms and some regions become uninhabitable. The question, she says, is whether the transition will be managed calmly or whether "hunger and conflict will erupt - an unconscionable outcome that would endanger us all"

After a year in which wildfires, storms and floods have driven thousands from their homes, this book's warning about a rising population of climate migrants has a chilling resonance. The survival solutions it offers - such as global freedom of movement - are not entirely persuasive. But the case it makes for fresh thinking is utterly convincing

The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has said that she dreams of sending planes full of migrants to Rwanda. But policymakers are in denial about the number of people who will be forced to move as the impacts of climate change become more profound, argues the scientist Gaia Vince in Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval (John Murray). She calls for us all to step up and manage migration humanely

In the opening chapters of Nomad Century, science writer and broadcaster Gaia Vince paints a stark picture of what the world is likely to look like if global average temperatures rise 4°C above pre-industrial levels. This isn't a distant or unrealistic prospect: climate models suggest we're currently heading towards a 3°C-4°C rise by the end of the century - less than three generations away. In this rigorously researched, accessibly written and illuminating book, Vince examines what these changes will entail and how we should respond, ending with an eight-point 'manifesto' to guide us. While not shying away from the scale of the challenges, she doesn't give in to fatalism or inertia: '[We] are facing a species emergency - but we can manage it

My first choice is Nomad Century by Gaia Vince, a brilliant and disturbing analysis of how climate change will affect the world's migration patterns. Vince argues that, instead of being afraid, we should embrace these new migratory movements. After all, she says, civilisations have all been built on the backs of migration. It is both a disturbing and a hopeful read

Got to be one of the most important books in the world today

How to Survive the Climate Upheaval

We are facing a species emergency. With every degree of temperature rise, a billion people will be displaced from the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years. From Bangladesh to Sudan to the western United States, and in cities from Cardiff to New Orleans to Shanghai, the quadruple threat of drought, heat, wildfires and flooding will utterly reshape Earth's human geography in the coming decades. 
 
In this rousing call to arms, Royal Society Science Book Prize-winning author Gaia Vince describes how we can plan for and manage this unavoidable climate migration while we restore the planet to a fully habitable state. Drawing on a wealth of eye-opening data and original reporting, Vince shows that migration is not the problem - it's the solution. We will need to move northwards as a species, into the habitable fringes on Europe, Asia and Canadas Canada and the greening Arctic circle. 
 
While the climate catastrophe is finally getting the attention it deserves, the inevitability of mass migration has been largely ignored. In Nomad Century, Vince provides, for the first time, an examination of the most pressing question facing humanity.

Gaia Vince

Praise for Nomad Century

With the government's migration policy in such appalling disarray, Gaia Vince's Nomad Century has to be the most timely book of the year. Vince's calm, compassionate and authoritative explanation of the inevi ...

A tour de force... Nomad Century should be on the reading list of anyone and everyone in any position of power. It is not simply a future atlas of human geography showing where will be habitable and for how m ...

Essential, bold and clear-sighted... I have yet to read a book that takes the question of how to survive the coming decades more seriously

With the government's migration policy in such appalling disarray, Gaia Vince's Nomad Century has to be the most timely book of the year. Vince's calm, compassionate and authoritative explanation of the inevi ...

A tour de force... Nomad Century should be on the reading list of anyone and everyone in any position of power. It is not simply a future atlas of human geography showing where will be habitable and for how m ...

Essential, bold and clear-sighted... I have yet to read a book that takes the question of how to survive the coming decades more seriously

With the government's migration policy in such appalling disarray, Gaia Vince's Nomad Century has to be the most timely book of the year. Vince's calm, compassionate and authoritative explanation of the inevi ...

A tour de force... Nomad Century should be on the reading list of anyone and everyone in any position of power. It is not simply a future atlas of human geography showing where will be habitable and for how m ...

Essential, bold and clear-sighted... I have yet to read a book that takes the question of how to survive the coming decades more seriously

Books by Gaia Vince

Articles featuring Gaia Vince

Uplifting climate books to inspire hope about the planet’s future

What to read if you loved Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

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