Not Quite World's End

📖 The Scoop

John Simpson has been travelling the world as a journalist for forty years, reporting on the many disasters that have befallen us in that time. Today, at a time when many of us might legitimately believe that the end of the world truly is nigh, he takes a rather different view. For Simpson, perhaps better than anyone, knows that though war, disease, terrorism, natural disasters and crime always seem about to overwhelm us, the reality is that the great events that afflict us - the Islamic revolution in Iran, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington, even the ongoing war in Iraq - have not caused the world to stop turning. Some things change, indeed, but others stay much the same and we should perhaps remember that every generation worries about the things it reads in the newspapers. Here, then, Simpson looks at the world's troubles - the Middle East, global warming, population explosion - and takes the view that it's nowhere near its end. His prose, his humanity and clear-sightedness, and the anecdotes about the many strange people and peculiar places he has come across, all add up to a richly satisfying read.

Genre: Biography & Autobiography / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / General (fancy, right?)