BOOKS OF THE DAY
Climate and Destiny
Climate and the Energy of Nations. By S. F. Markham, M.D. (Oxford University Press. tog. 6d.)
HIPPOCRATES—Or rather some member of his school—wrote a remarkable little treatise, nearly 2,500 years ago, on Airs, Waters and Places, in wh ch he examined the effect of climate conditions on the health and character of peoples. Aristotle wrote some pregnant remarks on the same theme 41 the Seventh Book of his Politics : it was handled again, in later times, by two Frenchmen- Bodin and Montesqu eu : it has been handled. in more recent days, by two Anglo-Saxons—Buckle and Ellsworth Huntington. Mr. Markham has a long fine of predecessors ; but he handles his theme with originality sobriety and scholarship. He accepts the general thes.s that cl mate conditions energy, and that it is in that sense, the moving finger which writes much of human history : he shows how the 70 degrees annual isotherm has largely determined the r se and the course of civilisations. But he is far, very far, from being a predestinarian; there is no natural determinism in his argument. The new idea (new at any rate to the reviewer) in which his argument culminates is the dea of climatic control, or the conditioning of climate, by the mind and invention of man. The fault is not in climate, but in ourselves, if we are underlings ; man has lieen in the past, and can be still more in the future, the master of airs and' waters an places. The moral which emerges is the moral which Sophocles prophetically drew, long, long ago : " Of all strong things none is more wonderfully strong than man. . . . Language is his, mid wind-swift thought, and city-founding mind ; and he has learnt to shelter himself from cold, and piercing rain."
These last words of Sophocles give the cue to Mr. Markham's thought. Temperatures beat on man : humidities soak and drench him : airs play upon him, gusty or soft : radiation has its subtle ways with him. But " he has learnt to shelter himself "—to shelter himself from cold and from the humidity which may be worse than " piercing rain " ; and he is likely to learn more ways of sheltering, especially from heat, by the methods of air-conditioning which are spreading through the United States and through India, and may spread through all the world. It is the vision of the future in which Mr. Markham's book ends that gives the stimulus and the tang to his argument. " I believe we are on the eve of developments greater than those of the past. . . . In the Past mankind has blundered into civilisations. With the knowledge before us we know that the populous nation which can keep its citizens, all its citizens, in ideal climatic conditions, whether indoor or outdoor, will have a great opportunity to lead the world, in health, energy, trade and culture."
Mr. Markham's book is partly historical and partly contemporary. The historical part comes in the long fifth chapter, on " climate and history," which fills about one-third of the book. It is a chapter in praise of the hypocaust (one of the keys to Roman greatness), of the grate and chimney, and of the coal civilisation. It is a chapter full of stimulus, and it supplies new historical perspectives ; but it might perhaps be based on a fuller reading of history. The author sometimes goes wrong, especially on statistics of population. He assigns to ancient Greece—unless the reviewer has misread his words—" a population of about 300,000." The population of Attica alone (and Athens was only one of the many Greek city- states) has been calculated at a figure of from 31o,000 to 425,000. He speaks, again, of the admission of Italian allies under Caius Gracchus as having swelled the numbers of Roman citizens to 4,163,000. The admission came at a later date, though it was proposed by Caius Gracchus; and it was given on conditions which made it largely nugatory. These are only slight moles on the general countenance of the book ; and they are moles which can easily be removed when the book attains, as it surely will, its next edition.
It is the contemporary part of the book (though the historical part is an essential thread of a closely-knit and taut texture) which will particularly engage the attention of the general body of readers. This is a part based both on close statistical investigation and on prolonged travels round the world. (There is a sense of Odysseus about the book—" who wandered very far, and saw the cities and knew the minds of men ' at first-hand.) The statistical investiga- tions, and the maps and tables by which they are accompanied, are of the first importance. Mr. Markham examines national energy in terms of death rate and infantile mortality, in terms of national income, and in terms of national share in world trade ; and he correlates the results with the climatic conditions of various countries, measured in terms of temperature and humidity and their range. The examination, the correlation, and the results, are fasci- nating. They will make every New Zealander proud, and they will make every Briton proud of the New Zealander. But that is not the only lesson to be learned. Far from it. This little book is packed tight with suggestion. Not only should it be read by every historical student. It is a book for statesmen, administrators, planners and engineers. It is an excitement to read it. It is a happiness to think of the prospect of returning to it for ideas, and facts, and stimulus, and comfort and joy in good hope for the luture of man. . . . We have bodies, after all. Let us make the best of our brother, the body. It will help our sister, the soul.
ERNEST BARRER.
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