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It's been said that we're a more fearful society than ever before. Yet fear, and the panic it produces, have long been driving forces - perhaps the driving force - of world history: fear of God, of famine, war, disease, poverty, and other people. In Fear: An Alternative History of the World, Robert Peckham considers the impact of fear in history, as both a coercive tool of power and as a catalyst for social change. Beginning with the Black Death in the fourteenth century, Peckham traces a shadow history of the world through fear, from the French Revolution and the social movements of the nineteenth century to modern market crashes, Cold War paranoia and the AIDS pandemic, and into a digital culture increasingly marked by uniquely twenty-first-century fears. What did fear mean to us in the past, and how can a better understanding of it equip us to face the future? Through the stories of the people and the moments that changed history, Peckham reveals how fear and panic made us who we are.
Robert Peckham is a cultural historian and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The founder of Open Cube, which promotes the integration of the humanities with the sciences and technology, he was previously Professor of History and M.B. Lee Endowed Professor in the Humanities and Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. He has held fellowships at Cambridge, Oxford, LSE and King's College London.
Written by Robert Peckham. Published by Profile Books in 2024. Paperback, measures 7.7 x 5 x 1.2 inches, 448 pages. ISBN 9781788167253
