Diminishing returns

Lizzie Wade Apocalypse How catastrophe transformed our world and can forge new futures 320pp. William Collins. £20. Luke Kemp Goliath’s Curse The history and future of societal collapse 592pp. Viking.

LETTER FROM LONDON AHMED: HAYLEY BENOIT; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION ...

David Farrier Nature’s Genius Evolution’s lessons for a changing planet 288pp. Canongate. £20. In David Farrier’s latest book, he warns us that humanity is endangering every facet of life on Earth thr

There has been a tectonic fragility to the early weeks of 2026, the uneasy sense of an old world shifting. New horror in Syria, Venezuela, Greenland, Iran; ongoing terror in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan. In t

“Demography is destiny”, investors are often told. Fears of overpopulation flared up in the 1970s and 1980s, while today underpopulation is the worry. The United Nations expects China’s population to

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci’s words, written in prison near Bari almost 100 years ago, ring out to us now. The politi