Language learning is often a daunting prospect. Many of us wish we had learned a language to a higher level at school. But even though adults of all ages can do well in acquiring a new language, fear – or the memory of struggling to memorise grammar at school – can hold us back.
We both work in languages education and recognise the real benefits that learning another language can bring. As well as myriad cognitive benefits, it brings with it cultural insights and empathetic awareness.
With that in mind, we’re here to dispel five myths about language learning that might be putting you off.
Myth one: it’s all about grammar and vocabulary
In fact, learning about people, history and culture is arguably the best part of learning a language. While grammar and vocabulary are undeniably important aspects of language learning, they don’t exist in isolation from how people communicate in everyday life.
Language learning can help us to have “intercultural agility”: the ability to engage empathically with people who have very different experiences from our own. To be able to do this means learning about people, history and culture.
Immersing yourself in a particular country or location, for example through studying or working, is a fantastic way to do this. But when this isn’t feasible, there are so many other options available. We can learn so much through music, books, films, musical theatre and gaming.
Film and TV can be a great way to immerse in a different language and culture. Ellyy/Shutterstock
Myth two: we should focus on avoiding mistakes – they’re embarrassing
One problem with formal language learning is that it encourages us to focus on accuracy at all costs. To pass exams, you need to get things “right”. And many of us feel nervous about getting things wrong.
But in real-life communication, even in our expert languages, we often make mistakes and get away with it. Think of the number of times you have misspelled something, or said the wrong word, and still been understood.
Less formal language learning can encourage us to think more about communication than accuracy.
One advocate of this approach is author Benny Lewis, who popularised a communicative learning approach he calls “language hacking” which focuses on the language skills needed for conversation. Language apps also encourage this, as does real-life travel and communication.
Myth three: it’s too much effort to start over with a new language
You can use languages in lots of ways, and the language you learn at school doesn’t have to be the only one you learn.
In England, most people learn one or more of French, Spanish or German at school. These languages can often serve as great apprenticeship languages, teaching us how to learn a language and about grammatical structures.
But they are not always the languages that we are most likely to use as adults, when family and work could take us anywhere. Our cultural interests might also lead us to want to know more about a new language.
Learning a language that you have a personal interest in can be very motivating and help you to keep going when things get a bit rocky.
Myth four: learning a language is an individual endeavour
You don’t have to learn alone. Learning with others, or having the support of others, can help motivate us to learn.
This might be through a multilingual marriage, joining a conversation group or chatting in a language learning forum online. Don’t feel that you have to have reached a certain proficiency before you start reaching out to others.
Language apps can also make language learning a collective endeavour. You can learn along with friends and family, and congratulate them on their language learning streaks.
This is something both of us do with multiple generations of our families, helping us engage with language learning in a lighthearted way.
Myth five: it’s a lot of hard graft
Learning a language in a systematic way can be challenging, whether in a classroom or from a self-study course. But some things make this easier. We have found that people are more motivated to engage when they have a personal reason to learn. This could be, for example, wanting to communicate with family or to travel to a particular country or region.
The growth in popularity and accessibility of language learning apps has made language learning possible from any location and at any time, often for free.
You can easily catch up on your Chinese from the comfort of your own armchair, at whatever time is most convenient for you. Apps can be fun and playful, and can help us maintain motivation, develop vocabulary and embed grammatical structures.
There are lots of reasons for learning a language, and lots of benefits. We encourage everyone to focus on these benefits, and give it a go.
Jessica Mary Bradley currently receives funding from the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust in collaboration with Wellcome.
Abigail Parrish does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Neil Saunders, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics, Department of Mathematical Sciences, City St George’s, University of London
Here are the answers to the festive maths quiz I set on December 23. I hope you enjoyed it.
Puzzle 1: You are given nine gold coins that look identical. You are told that one of them is fake, and that this coin weighs less than the real ones. Using a set of old-fashioned balance scales, what is the smallest number of weighings you need to determine which is the fake coin?
Solution: You can do this in just two weighings:
(1) Divide the nine coins into three sets of three, and choose two of these sets to weigh against one another. If one set is lighter than the other, then the fake is one of these three coins. If the two sets weigh the same, then the fake is in the three unweighed coins.
(2) Now take the set with the fake coin, and weigh two of its coins against each other. If one is lighter, that is the fake. If they weigh the same, then the fake is the third coin.
Puzzle 2: You’ve been transported back in time to help cook Christmas dinner. Your job is to bake the Christmas pie, but all you’ve got is two egg-timers: one that times exactly four minutes, and one that times exactly seven minutes. How can you time ten minutes exactly?
Solution: There are multiple answers to this puzzle, but supposing the chef wants you cook this pie as quickly as possible, here’s how to do it:
– Start both timers at the same time.
– Once the four-minute timer has finished, the seven-minute timer will have three minutes to go. At this point, put the pie in the oven.
– Once the remaining three minutes on the seven-minute timer has finished, turn the seven-minute timer over.
– Let the seven-minute timer run its full course, then take the pie out immediately. The pie will have been in the oven for ten minutes exactly.
Puzzle 3: You are now entrusted with allocating the mulled wine, which is currently in two full ten-litre barrels. The chef hands you one five-litre bottle and one four-litre bottle, both empty. He orders you to fill the bottles with exactly three litres of wine each, without wasting a drop. How can you do this?
Solution: Here is a solution in 11 steps (see table below), recording the quantities of mulled wine in each barrel and bottle. B1 and B2 are the two ten-litre barrels; b5 and b4 are the five-litre and four-litre bottles respectively.
Note: You might have found a quicker solution than mine, but this is what I could come up with!
Puzzle 4: Suppose there are 100 days of Christmas. On the n-th day, you receive £n as a gift, ranging from £1 on the first day to £100 on the final day. Can you calculate the total amount of money you are given, without laboriously adding all 100 numbers together?
Solution: When Carl Friedrich Gauss was posed this question by his maths teacher, the budding mathematician is said to have performed the following calculation:
Let s be the sum of the first 100 digits. Then we can write: s = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + … + 99 + 100
But we can also write this backwards: s = 100 + 99 + 98 + … + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1
If we now add these two equations vertically term by term, we see that the left hand side is s + s = 2s.
On the right-hand side, adding vertically again, the sum of every two terms is always the same, namely 101 (1 + 100, 2 + 99 and so on). And there are 100 terms in all – so the easy calculation for the total on the right-hand side is 100 * 101 = 10,100.
Therefore: 2s = 10,100, and s = 5,050. The total amount of money you are given is £5,050.
Puzzle 5: Here’s a Christmassy sequence of numbers. The first six in the sequence are: 9, 11, 10, 12, 9, 5 … (Note: the fifth number is 11 in some versions of this puzzle.) What is the next number in this sequence?
Solution: This sequence is the number of letters in each consecutive present given over the 12 days of Christmas. So the answer is 5, for swans. Here’s the full list:
Partridge (9), turtle doves (11), French hens (10), calling birds (12), gold rings (9, or 11 for those who sing “golden”), geese (5), swans (5), maids (5), ladies (6), lords (5), pipers (6), drummers (8).
Note: this might seem like a non-mathematical puzzle, but maths – and more broadly, critical and creative thinking – in part relies on spotting patterns that might look a little tenuous at first. Recruitment to the Allies’ code-breaking headquarters Bletchley Park during the second world war was partly based on the ability to solve a cryptic crossword.
Puzzle 6: Which of the following 100 statements is the only true one?
Exactly one statement in this list is false.
Exactly two statements in this list are false.
… and so on until:
Exactly 99 statements in this list are false.
Exactly 100 statements in this list are false.
Solution: Only the 99th statement in this list is true. Since there are 100 statements, and the n-th statement asserts that exactly n statements in the list are false, this can only be true when n = 99.
Puzzle 7: You and your friends Arthur and Bob are wearing Christmas hats that are either red or green. Nobody can see their own hat but you can all see the other two. Arthur’s and Bob’s hats are both red.
You are all told that at least one of the hats is red. Arthur says: “I do not know what colour my hat is.” Then Bob says: “I do not know what colour my hat is.” Assuming your friends have impeccable logic, can you deduce what colour your Christmas hat is?
Solution: Your hat must be red. If your hat were green, then both Arthur and Bob would see one green and one red hat. So when Arthur says that he doesn’t know the colour of his hat, Bob could immediately deduce that his hat was red. But since Bob doesn’t know the colour of his hat, Bob must be seeing two red hats, and so you can deduce that your hat is red.
Puzzle 8: There are three boxes under your Christmas tree. One contains two small presents, one contains two pieces of coal, and one contains a small present and a piece of coal. Each box has a label on it that shows what’s inside – but the labels have got mixed up, so every box currently has the wrong label on it.
You are told that you can reach in and take out one object from just one box. Which box should you choose in order to then be able to switch the labels so that every label correctly corresponds to the contents of its box?
Solution: Since all the boxes have the wrong labels, you know that if you open the box currently labelled as containing one small present and one piece of coal, you will either see two small presents or two pieces of coal.
Suppose you open it and see two small presents. Then the label of two small presents must be fixed to this box. And since you also know that every box originally had the wrong label, the label of one small present and one piece of coal should go on the box currently labelled two pieces of coal. Finally, the two pieces of coal label belongs to the box originally labelled two small presents.
Puzzle 9: There is a one-litre bottle of orange juice and a one-litre bottle of apple juice in the kitchen. Jack puts a tablespoon of orange juice into the bottle of apple juice, then stirs it around so it’s evenly mixed. Now Jill takes a tablespoon of liquid from that apple juice bottle puts it back in the bottle of orange juice. Is there now more orange juice in the bottle of apple juice, or more apple juice in the bottle of orange juice?
Solution: They are the same. This is a nice example of “invariance” – a term that comes up a lot in mathematics.
After all the adding of tablespoons of juice and all the mixing, the amount of orange juice in the apple juice bottle must have replaced the same amount of apple juice that was originally in the apple juice bottle, because the amount of liquid in each bottle is still one litre (they have remained invariant).
This explanation can feel unsatisfactory when you first read it. But exploiting the power of invariance allows you to deduce that the amounts must be the same, without any calculation.
Puzzle 10: In Santa’s home town, all banknotes carry pictures of either Santa or Mrs Claus on one side, and pictures of either a present or reindeer on the other. A young elf places four notes on a table showing the following pictures in this order:
Santa | Mrs Claus | Present | Reindeer
Now an older, wiser elf tells him: “If Santa is on one side of the note, a present must be on the other.” Which notes must the young elf turn over to confirm what the older elf says is true?
Solution: First, the young elf should turn over the banknote with Santa on it. If there isn’t a present on the other side, then the older elf is lying. Next, the young elf should turn over the reindeer banknote to confirm that Santa is not on the other side. Again, if Santa were on the other side, the older elf would be lying.
It might be tempting to turn over the present banknote. But the older elf only says “if Santa, then present”, which doesn’t imply “if present, then Santa”. So it doesn’t matter whether Santa or Mrs Claus is on the other side of the present banknote – and it also doesn’t matter what is on the other side of the Mrs Claus banknote, because the older elf doesn’t say anything about those notes.
Bonus puzzle solution
Santa travels on his sleigh from Greenland to the North Pole at a speed of 30 miles per hour, then immediately returns from the North Pole to Greenland at a speed of 40 miles per hour. What is the average speed of Santa’s entire journey?_
Solution: This puzzle is perhaps an example of what psychologist Daniel Kahneman called Thinking Fast and Slow. Our fast-thinking system might say “just take the average”, and so we would guess 35 miles per hour. A reasonable answer, but wrong.
Our slower-thinking system – which is effortful to use, requiring tools like algebra and critical thinking – is needed here. First, let’s set up some variables:
– let d be the distance from Greenland to the North Pole.
– let t₁ be the time taken on the out-journey.
– let t₂ be the time taken on the return journey.
Using the standard equation “speed = distance divided by time”, we can say:
30 = d/t₁ and 40 = d/t₂
Rearranging these equations, we also know that t₁ = d/30 and t₂ = d/40
Since Santa travels the same distance there and back, his total distance travelled is 2d. And the average speed for the total journey is this total distance divided by the total time taken: 2d/(t₁ + t₂)
Using all of the above, we can say the average speed of Santa’s journey is 2d/(d/30 + d/40)
Now, (d/30 + d/40) = (4d/120 + 3d/120) = 7d/120
So Santa’s average speed = 2d / (7d/120) = 240/7 = 34.3
In this equation, the ‘d’s cancel out. This means we can work out the average speed of the journey without knowing either the distance or the time it took Santa to make his journey. This is the power of algebra: it allows you to use and manipulate quantities, using them as place holders even when you don’t know what the quantities are.
The answer is that Santa travelled at an average speed of 34.3 miles per hour.
Neil Saunders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
From minimalist wrist designs to full sleeves, body art has become so common that it barely raises an eyebrow. But while the personal meaning of a tattoo may be obvious, the biological consequences are far less visible. Once tattoo ink enters the body, it does not stay put. Beneath the skin, tattoo pigments interact with the immune system in ways scientists are only just beginning to understand.
Tattoos are generally considered safe, but growing scientific evidence suggests tattoo inks are not biologically inert. The key question is no longer whether tattoos introduce foreign substances into the body, but how toxic those substances might be and what that means for long-term health.
Tattoo inks are complex chemical mixtures. They contain pigments that give colour, liquid carriers that help distribute the ink, preservatives to prevent microbial growth, and small amounts of impurities. Many pigments currently in use were originally developed for industrial applications such as car paint, plastics and printer toner, rather than for injection into human skin.
Some inks contain trace amounts of heavy metals, including nickel, chromium, cobalt and occasionally lead. Heavy metals can be toxic at certain levels and are well known for triggering allergic reactions and immune sensitivity.
Tattoo inks can also contain organic compounds, including azo dyes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Azo dyes are synthetic colourants widely used in textiles and plastics. Under certain conditions, such as prolonged exposure to sunlight or during laser tattoo removal, they can break down into aromatic amines. These chemicals have been linked to cancer and genetic damage in laboratory studies.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, often shortened to PAHs, are produced during incomplete burning of organic material and are found in soot, vehicle exhaust and charred food. Black tattoo inks, commonly made from carbon black, may contain these compounds, some of which are classified as carcinogenic.
Tattooing involves injecting ink deep into the dermis, the layer of skin beneath the surface. The body recognises pigment particles as foreign material. Immune cells attempt to remove them, but the particles are too large to be fully cleared. Instead, they become trapped inside skin cells, which is what makes tattoos permanent.
Tattoo ink does not remain confined to the skin. Studies show that pigment particles can migrate through the lymphatic system and accumulate in lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are small structures that filter immune cells and help coordinate immune responses. The long-term health effects of ink accumulation in these tissues remain unclear, but their central role in immune defence raises concerns about prolonged exposure to metals and organic toxins.
Tattoos and the immune system
A recent study suggests that commonly used tattoo pigments can influence immune activity, trigger inflammation and reduce the effectiveness of certain vaccines. Researchers found that tattoo ink is taken up by immune cells in the skin. When these cells die, they release signals that keep the immune system activated, leading to inflammation in nearby lymph nodes for up to two months.
The study also found that tattoo ink present at a vaccine injection site altered immune responses in a vaccine-specific way. Notably, it was associated with a reduced immune response to the COVID-19 vaccine. This does not mean tattoos make vaccines unsafe. Rather, it suggests tattoo pigments can interfere with immune signalling, the chemical communication system immune cells use to coordinate responses to infection or vaccination, under certain conditions.
At present, there is no strong epidemiological evidence linking tattoos to cancer in humans. However, laboratory and animal studies suggest potential risks. Certain tattoo pigments can degrade over time, or when exposed to ultraviolet light or laser tattoo removal, forming toxic and sometimes carcinogenic byproducts.
Many cancers take decades to develop, making these risks difficult to study directly, especially given how recently widespread tattooing has become.
The most well-documented health risks of tattoos are allergic and inflammatory reactions. Red ink is particularly associated with persistent itching, swelling and granulomas. Granulomas are small inflammatory nodules that form when the immune system attempts to isolate material it cannot remove.
These reactions can appear months or years after a tattoo is applied and may be triggered by sun exposure or changes in immune function. Chronic inflammation has been linked to tissue damage and increased disease risk. For people with autoimmune conditions or weakened immune systems, tattoos may pose additional concerns.
One of the biggest challenges in assessing tattoo toxicity is the lack of consistent regulation. In many countries, tattoo inks are regulated far less strictly than cosmetics or medical products, and manufacturers may not be required to disclose full ingredient lists.
The European Union has introduced stricter limits on hazardous substances in tattoo inks, but globally, oversight remains uneven.
For most people, tattoos do not cause serious health problems, but they are not risk-free. Tattoos introduce substances into the body that were never designed for long-term residence in human tissue, some of which can be toxic under certain conditions.
The main concern is cumulative exposure. As tattoos become larger, more numerous and more colourful, the total chemical burden increases. Combined with sun exposure, ageing, immune changes or laser removal, this burden may have consequences that science has not yet fully uncovered.
Tattoos remain a powerful form of self-expression, but they also represent lifelong chemical exposure. While current evidence does not suggest widespread danger, growing research highlights important unanswered questions about toxicity, immune effects and long-term health. As tattooing continues to rise worldwide, the case for better regulation, transparency and sustained scientific investigation becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
Manal Mohammed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Refugee health is often discussed in terms of crises such as disease outbreaks, malnutrition and psychological distress. But some of the most serious effects of displacement are harder to see. One example is how forced migration can change the bacteria in the gut that support immunity and long-term health.
The human gut contains trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi, together known as the gut microbiome. These microbes help digest food, support the immune system and protect against illness. A healthy gut microbiome is usually diverse and balanced, with plenty of beneficial bacteria that help protect against infection and inflammation.
Studies show that refugees often have gut microbiomes that look different from those of people who have not experienced displacement. Researchers describe distinct gut microbiome profiles, typically with fewer types of microbes and changes in which bacteria are most common. These differences are not genetic. Instead, they reflect the extreme conditions many refugees face before, during and after displacement.
Understanding these differences can help improve healthcare for refugees, but it also shows how social inequality can become physically embedded in the body over time.
One common finding is higher levels of harmful bacteria and antibiotic-resistant organisms in refugee gut microbiomes. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can survive medicines designed to kill them, making infections harder to treat and easier to pass on.
Poor sanitation and contaminated environments play a major role. Many refugees come from, or travel through, areas affected by conflict or disaster, where access to clean water and toilets is limited. Drinking unsafe water or eating contaminated food increases the chance that disease-causing bacteria will settle in the gut and multiply, a process known as colonisation.
Refugees often live in challenging conditions, including limited access to clean water, adequate sanitation and healthcare services. stu.dio/Shutterstock
Common examples include E coli, Salmonella and Shigella. These bacteria can cause diarrhoea, vomiting and fever, and in severe cases may lead to dehydration, blood infection, poor growth in children or long-term digestive problems.
Repeated stomach and bowel infections, especially in crowded places with poor sanitation, disturb the normal balance of gut microbes. Over time, harmful species can take over, while the overall range of microbes shrinks. Having fewer different types of gut bacteria is widely recognised as a sign of poor gut health.
Chronic stress makes these problems worse. Refugees are often exposed to prolonged stress linked to war, violence, forced movement, separation from family and ongoing uncertainty. Rates of mental health challenges are high, and stress affects physical health through the gut–brain axis, the communication system between the brain and the digestive system.
Long-term stress alters immune responses, hormone levels and the gut lining. These changes increase inflammation and make it easier for harmful microbes to grow, while reducing beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.
Antibiotic use is another major factor driving poor gut health and antibiotic resistance. In low-resource or conflict settings, antibiotics are often used frequently because infections are common and access to testing is limited. Refugees may receive multiple courses without a clear diagnosis or follow-up. While these medicines can save lives, repeated or unnecessary use allows resistant bacteria to survive and spread.
Antibiotics also destroy helpful microbes that keep the gut healthy. Repeated courses reduce the number and variety of beneficial bacteria, weakening the gut’s ability to protect itself.
As a result, antibiotic-resistant strains such as E coli that can neutralise antibiotics can become established in the gut, making infections much harder to treat.
Poor conditions and malnutrition
Living conditions during displacement further increase the risk of gut infection and the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Refugees camps and temporary shelters are often overcrowded and lack basic hygiene facilities, allowing infectious diseases to spread easily.
Infectious diseases can spread rapidly in refugee camps where overcrowding and limited sanitation increase transmission risk. Ajdin Kamber/Shutterstock
Dietary disruption also affects gut health. Sudden shifts from traditional diets rich in fibre to emergency food aid high in refined carbohydrates deprive beneficial gut bacteria of fuel. Low-fibre diets weaken gut defences and allow harmful bacteria to thrive.
Malnutrition further increases vulnerability, especially in children, whose gut microbiomes are still developing.
The spread of harmful and antibiotic-resistant bacteria in refugee populations is a public health issue, not a personal one. Addressing them requires coordinated public health interventions, including improved sanitation, careful antibiotic use, stress-aware care and nutritional support that helps restore a healthy gut.
Understanding how all these factors interact is essential for developing humane, effective healthcare strategies that protect both refugee communities and wider public health.
Manal Mohammed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Sales of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) rocketed when Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election. Nearly a year into the second Trump administration – and 50 years since Arendt’s death in December 1975 – it seems like an apposite time to revisit the book and see what light it sheds on 2025.
The book is brilliant but difficult, combining history, political science and philosophy in a way that can be very disorientating. So what might we, as democratic citizens, gain from reading it?
Born to a secular German Jewish family in 1906, Arendt studied philosophy under Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers before turning to Zionist activism in Berlin in the early 1930s. After a brush with the gestapo, she fled to France, and in 1941 left Europe for the US. So when she began researching Origins in the early 1940s, she was no stranger to totalitarianism.
Totalitarianism, she argued, was a radically new form of government distinguished by its ideological conception of history. For the Nazis, history was a clash of races; for Stalinism, it was class war. Either way, totalitarian leaders sought to execute historical “laws” by forcibly reshaping the humans they ruled.
Humanity, Arendt said, is distinguished by its infinite variability – no person can ever entirely substitute for another. Totalitarianism aimed to destroy this. It isolated individuals, dissolving the bonds through which they unite and empower each other, and sought to extinguish human personhood.
The concentration camps’ total domination did so by reducing each inmate to “a bundle of reactions that can be liquidated and replaced” before killing them. With everyone ultimately subject to this threat, totalitarianism rendered the human person as such, superfluous.
Rather than pursuing stability, totalitarianism was always a movement, constantly instigating change. When its propaganda collided with facts, it brutalised reality until the facts conformed. Its ideal subjects not only believed its lies: they no longer found the distinction between truth and falsehood meaningful. This was “post-truth politics” at its most extreme.
Common sense won’t save us
Comparing today’s politics to fully fledged totalitarianism can be illuminating. But if it’s all we do, we risk overlooking Arendt’s subtler lessons about warning signs that can help us gauge threats to democracy.
The first is that political catastrophe isn’t always signposted by great causes, but arises when sometimes seemingly trivial developments converge. The greatest example for Arendt was political antisemitism. During the 19th century, only a “crackpot” fringe embraced it. By the 1930s, it was driving world politics.
This resonates with hard-right and far-right ideology today. Ideas widely seen as eccentric 20 years ago have increasingly come to shape democratic politics. Anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia penetrate the political mainstream. Alongside growing Islamophobia, antisemitism is on the rise again too.
The mainstreaming of previously marginal views helps explain a second warning sign that politics is increasingly driven by what Arendt described as “forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest”.
A simplistic politics of ideological fantasy and paranoia takes over instead. It appeals most to the isolated and lonely, people lost in society who have given up hope that anyone will ever address their real interests and concerns. Perpetually frustrated by reality, they seek escape in conspiracy theories instead.
Arendt’s story resonates with There Is Nothing For You Here, Fiona Hill’s account of the “left-behind” in communities of de-industrialised regions in the US, UK, Russia, and Germany – regions where the far right has grown.
In early 20th-century Europe, similar experiences of powerlessness spread alongside the imperialist embrace of what Arendt called “the limitless pursuit of power after power”. When colonial violence boomeranged back to its European source, the powerless were drawn to leaders who exemplified the violent pursuit of power for power’s sake.
New wine in old bottles
The neo-imperialist flex of a US government executing civilian boat crews in international waters while deploying regular armed forces domestically to fight crime looks like an appeal to the same instincts Arendt was writing about.
But perhaps Origins’ most important lesson is about trying to understand something radically new using outdated concepts – “interpreting history by commonplaces” as Arendt called it. Faced with a jarringly new style of politics, there is a temptation to explain it away as mere nationalistic excess, for instance. Or as an understandable expression of economic disappointment and one readily addressed with economic remedies.
Origins tells instead the story of something much greater than the sum of its parts taking on a terrible life of its own. By trying to reduce it to familiar terms, Arendt said, “the impact of reality and the shock of experience were no longer felt” and people failed to resist when they most needed to.
But this lesson also applies to the idea of totalitarianism itself. It helped Arendt understand the 1940s, but we shouldn’t assume that it will apply directly to 2025. The term totalitarianism could itself distract, rather than mobilising people.
For example, if claiming that Trumpian populism is already totalitarian seems excessively alarmist, then deciding that it isn’t might be excessively reassuring. Either could diminish people’s ability to respond to the demands of the moment.
What we urgently need instead is what Arendt described as “the unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality – whatever it may be”. Origins’ greatest lesson is in showing us what that looks like.
The main lesson for 2025 is as much about what Arendt was doing in the 1940s as about what she was saying: actively thinking in the now, and trying to grasp an emergent “something” on its own terms – a threat that is taking shape, but which hasn’t yet fully revealed itself.
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org; ff you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
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Christopher J. Finlay has previously received funding from the British Academy and from the Leverhulme Trust.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adrianna Zabrzewska, Senior Research Fellow (Postdoc), Edinburgh Napier University
Toxic masculinity doesn’t stop at marginalising women and LGBTQ+ people. It harms straight men by discouraging emotional expression, tenderness, and connection.
As the TV show Adolescence demonstrated, the troubling anxiety and rage surrounding what it means to “be a man” can arise early in life. What Adolescence also reminds us, though, is that framing boys as potential threats is not the way to go.
So how do we reach boys before they radicalise in dangerous ways? How can we do this without reducing them to stereotypes?
In my research, I drew on feminist philosophy to propose three concepts for rethinking masculinity: relationality, vulnerability, and inclination. There are books that already feature these ideals, like Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan or Rick Riordan’s action-packed urban fantasy series Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard.
The concept, inclination, relates to fostering a caring, curious orientation toward difference, a willingness to “lean in” rather than stand aloof. Or, to paraphrase the Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero, it is the courage to fall down the “slippery slope” of love, friendship and emotional bonds. In my interpretation, inclination is the drive that motivates people to connect with the world and care for various vulnerable others.
Inclination can be seen in Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, which combines exciting adventures with emotional depth. Magnus is a teenage male hero who is sweet, caring, and driven by love for his friends.
With a diverse cast of characters, from deaf elves to Muslim American female warriors and genderfluid pottery artists, the series offers an engaging lesson in intersectionality, which refers to the fact that everyone is part of multiple social categories.
Riordan’s other boy protagonists – including Percy Jackson or Jason Grace (also from the world of Percy Jackson) – rely on friends of all genders and are not threatened by independent women.
They bravely display their own vulnerability while respecting the vulnerability of others. And if they don’t – like the protagonist of The Trials of Apollo – it’s because they’re written as caricatures of self-aggrandising, hyper-individualistic masculinity.
Redefining masculinity through queer fiction
The concept of relationality is the idea that we are formed not in isolation but through relationships. It acknowledges the diverse contexts we inhabit, and emphasises that our differences should be respected, not ignored. Ideally, a person who sees themselves as relational would focus on fostering an ethical commitment to honour, rather than exploit, the vulnerabilities of others.
This can be seen in Two Boys Kissing, which follows several queer teenage protagonists as they explore friendship, love, and identity. What makes the novel remarkable is its chorus of narrators: a collective voice of gay men whose lives were lost during the HIV/Aids epidemic.
The narrators watch over the living boys with tenderness and urgency. They become a vigilant, caring presence that transcends time and space. They provide a sense of continuity between generations and individuals, showing that relationships matter, not only in our immediate circles but also in the larger tapestry of life.
Vulnerability refers to the shared human condition of being a body born from another body. We are all finite and fragile, susceptible to harm, loss, and injustice. Through our fragility and dependence, vulnerability can be transformed into resilience and connection. This is especially true when we recognise the diverse experiences of disenfranchisement that we each face.
In Two Boys Kissing, the chorus of narrators celebrate imperfect bodies, both cis-gendered and trans, that defy unrealistic beauty standards. They whisper encouragement to a lonely teen contemplating suicide and agonise over his pain. They affirm that care, intimacy and affection are not signs of weakness but of strength. Through these voices, Levithan’s readers learn that self-acceptance comes not from independence or dominance but from reaching out to others.
When strategically integrated into stories, educational practices and daily interactions, vulnerability, relationality, and inclination can help us sketch new ethical horizons, and not only for masculinity but for gendered existence as a whole.
Of course, literature will not solve our problems. It will not turn us into better people overnight (if at all). But stories are powerful cultural tools. They can show boys that being strong doesn’t mean being unfeeling, and that caring for others is not a betrayal of masculinity but its renewal.
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Adrianna Zabrzewska does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Voice cloning technology platforms like ElevenLabs allow anyone to replicate a voice using just a few seconds of audio, for a small fee. These technologies are reshaping cultural and artistic expression.
These female-led examples demonstrate working with the creative challenges of voice technologies, and in some ways, they’re nothing new: electronic music pioneer and composer Suzanne Ciani developed a technological approach decades ago to incorporate a male persona, named “Steve”, into her compositions when a male voice was required.
Voice-swapping technologies are also used by some male producers to present as female artists. British researcher and musician Helen Reddington has observed that: “Like the male gaze, the male ear is hidden and its power exercised behind the scenes.”
Reddington wrote that in 2018 in relation to the way that male writer/producers use female singers to reach an audience. But applied to AI, this points to a cultural dynamic where voice manipulation, as an extension of the male gaze and ear, may also reflect deeper desires to control female identities – especially in music, where voice is central to emotional expression and identity.
One of imoliver’s songs, created using an AI female voice.
AI voice technologies are a form of information technology. However, once a voice is rendered as information and is simulated, it will have “lost” its physical form. The combination of disembodied voice and the quality of its simulation can make it easier for people to think of computers as being like a human. This means that a person will be heard whether a machine or human speaks. It is this connection to a person that voice cloning disrupts.
British AI artist Oliver McCann, known as imoliver, openly admits to having “no musical talent at all … I can’t sing, I can’t play instruments, and I have no musical background at all”. Yet through AI, he has developed songs that foreground a female persona. Likewise, the eminent producer Timbaland has invented a pink-haired female artist, TaTa, in a new genre he refers to as a-pop or artificial pop. But does a creator’s gender matter in the development of AI artists and wider fanbases?
Noonoouri, a digital avatar signed by Warner Music Central Europe in 2024, though not completely AI-generated, is a composite of digital tools, presented as a human-made young female fashionista turned pop star. The Instagram feed for Noonoouri shows everyday activities – eating pasta, throwing peace signs, even signalling support for Black Lives Matter. The avatar’s appearance is malleable. But these gestures and modified appearance, while seemingly empathetic, may be more performative than transformative.
Noonoouri’s creator, Jeorg Zuber, used his own voice – digitally feminised – and motion capture of his movements to animate the avatar. It is Zuber’s embodiment of femininity that is being portrayed here, ultimately to produce a pliable brand ambassador. As Warner’s senior A&R manager, Marec Lerche, has stated: “We can change her style in a minute … we can make her fly if we want.”
As British author Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, has pointed out, apps used to develop these female avatars and characters rely on a misogynistic idea of “what a woman is and should be. She’ll never disagree with you, she’ll never answer back”. It is not AI doing the impersonation, but the human company.
Technology may blur boundaries, but it also reveals who holds the power. When male creators use AI to simulate female voices and personas, are they expanding artistic possibilities or perpetuating a new form of gender appropriation, ventriloquism and misogyny? One call to action to counter the growth of the manosphere is the increased presence of girl voices to tackle misogyny. Yet voice simulation technologies may undo this.
In the age of AI, impersonation takes on new meaning. When mediated by technologies largely controlled by cisgender men and tech platform companies, female impersonation risks becoming a tool of dominance rather than expression. The question is no longer just about artistic freedom – it’s about who gets to speak, and who is being spoken through.
This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.
Hussein Boon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When COVID lockdown loomed back in 2020, many people panic-bought toilet rolls – but I stocked up on notebooks and my favourite pencils.
I had been inspired by the writing of Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. In Letters to a Young Poet (1929), a collection of ten letters written to a young military cadet who had sent his poetry to Rilke for critique, Rilke advised: “Confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write?”
In a BBC radio programme, The Essay: Letters to a Young Poet, first broadcast in 2014, the English poet Vicki Feaver responded to Rilke’s question. She said: “Of course I wouldn’t literally die, but a part of me would die, as it did in the years when I didn’t write.”
My husband, Arthur Gardner, who died of motor neurone disease in 2008, would have identified with this. He started reading and writing poetry in his early 20s and his enthusiasm and ambition increased as he grew older.
During his last few months, he had lost the use of his arms and hands and was dependent on a machine that pushed air into his lungs. Nevertheless, he used every possible opportunity to work on his poems, particularly looking forward to the weekly visit of a sensitive and sympathetic Marie Curie nurse who would patiently scribe for him.
Feaver had wanted to be a poet since reading the work of William Blake as a child. But it wasn’t until she was in her early 30s, married with four young children, that she began to write seriously. The poem 1974, which appears in her collection, I Want! I Want! (2019), includes a conversation she had at a party when a man asked her what she did. The final stanza reveals how significant an impact it had:
‘I’m a poet!’ I lied
jolting myself to life:
a woman buried under ice
with words burning inside.
Feaver’s first full collection, Close Relatives (now out of print) was published in 1981. Thirteen years later, her collection The Handless Maiden won several awards. Many of these poems are reworkings of stories from other sources.
The title poem, one that Feaver has said is very important to her, is a retelling of one of Grimms’ fairy tales. A woman whose hands have been severed by her father has them restored when she plunges them in water to save her drowning child. Of course, hands are used for writing, and this is emphasised in the last lines of the poem: “And I cried for my hands that sprouted / in the red-orange mud – the hands / that write this, grasping / her curled fist.”
In a later poem, Bramble Arm, Feaver explores the notion that writing can be empowering. The speaker of the poem describes a dream where her right arm, “the arm that wields / my writing hand”, is covered in brambles:
It could be a punishment
for unlocking the voice
I was taught as a child
to soften or silence.
Or a sign of its power –
a weak woman’s arm
transformed into
a fearsome weapon.
Now in her eighties, Feaver has continued to write. Her most recent publication, The Yellow Kite (2025) is her first collection since she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In the first poem, Ode to Parkinson’s, she addresses the illness which “began as her enemy”, but can be seen as a friend because: “You jolted her awake: / challenging her to live / every minute left to her.”
The word “jolted” is possibly a deliberate link to her earlier poem 1974. The jolt caused by the man’s question was the motivation to begin writing, and now illness has given a new sense of urgency to living fully – and for Feaver, that means writing.
There are 25 poems in the pamphlet. Many of them are about what it is like to live with Parkinson’s, some of them using the moniker “shaking woman”. One poem, Her Lost Words, reveals how hard it is for a poet who feels as if “the inside of her head”:
was a shaken snow-globe
where words, mingling with the storm
of whirling flakes, settled randomly,
revealing some and burying others.
In Parkinson’s Speaks, the disease is given its own voice, and it is a cruel one: “But I’m patient. I can wait. / You’ve already fallen / and broken a hip.”
The poems face up to the reality of ageing and serious illness but refuse self-pity or false optimism. The title poem, the last one in the pamphlet, refers to a kite that was a gift from a ten-year-old son “the year his father left”. The poet recalls “watching it as it soared” and the effect it had: “My spirit that I thought / would never recover / struggled up from the floor / and flew into the air.”
Writing does not take us away from the difficult and the painful. If we write with courage and with integrity, it can take us to the very heart of it.
It was after my husband’s death that I started writing poetry. Many of the poems I wrote then were raw and self-centred, but writing them helped me to make sense of my grief. Now I write with more awareness of the craft and with ambition.
It’s often difficult and frustrating but frequently absorbing and fascinating. I think of Rilke’s question. Must I write? My answer is yes.
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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
Julie Meril Gardner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Xu Peng, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Illicit Economies, Violence and Development, SOAS, University of London
The town of Shwe Kokko in south-eastern Myanmar, which is widely recognised as hosting one of the country’s most notorious scam centres.Naphatpixs / Shutterstock
South-east Asia has become the “ground zero” for the global online scamming industry, according to the UN, costing victims billions of US dollars each year. Scam operations are run by Chinese crime syndicates from fortified compounds in countries like Myanmar, which has been embroiled in a nationwide armed conflict since 2021.
The size of the scam industry has led to sustained security crackdowns in recent years. This has included a number of joint operations involving police forces from multiple countries. However, despite releasing tens of thousands of trafficked workers from these compounds, the raids have done little to wipe out scam operations.
In October, for example, Myanmar’s military stormed a major scam hub in the south-eastern Karen State. The operation was, according to military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, proof that the army would “completely eradicate online scam activities from their roots”. But, just days later, local reporting indicated that work was continuing uninterrupted at other compounds in the area.
Since 2018, I have been carrying out fieldwork along Myanmar’s borders with China and Thailand. I have found that checkpoint controls vary widely. This asymmetry determines where in Myanmar scam hubs emerge and helps explain why operations are often able to relocate rather than shut down when faced with pressure.
A banner warning against scams at Menglian border port, in the Yunnan province of China. It reads: ‘Scam tactics change daily – don’t listen, don’t believe, don’t transfer’. Xu Peng, CC BY-NC-ND
China’s border with northern Myanmar is heavily securitised. Before travellers reach the border, they must pass internal checkpoints on the main roads that lead into the border counties of Yunnan province.
Police routinely check ID cards and ask people whose household registration is outside Yunnan to explain their visit. Roadside posters, digital billboards and village loudspeakers repeat the same message: do not cross the border to work in scam parks.
Local police officers I interviewed described it as now “almost impossible” for ordinary people to cross informally from China into Myanmar. And restrictions on crossing the border have tightened since late 2023, when the armed conflict in northern Myanmar intensified.
China also exercises tight telecommunications and financial controls. Real-name registration for phone SIM cards, anti-fraud apps installed on smartphones and close scrutiny of cross-border money transfers all raise the risks of running large-scale scam centres near Chinese territory.
View across the Moei River towards Shwe Kokko, a cluster of buildings in Myanmar opposite Mae Sot in Thailand. Xu Peng, CC BY-NC-ND
The situation is different along Thailand’s border with Myanmar. This border has long served as a trade corridor, migration route and lifeline for refugees fleeing conflict in Myanmar. Decades of instability there have left a dense landscape of refugee camps, informal crossings and aid infrastructure in the Thai borderlands.
Towns such as Mae Sot in western Thailand, which sit only a short drive from Karen State where scam compounds have proliferated in recent years, have become key hubs for trade and refugee support. The same roads and bridges that carry refugees, aid workers and traders are also used by brokers moving trafficked workers.
Thai authorities do operate checkpoints and immigration controls. But compared with the Chinese border, these are shaped more by humanitarian concerns and longstanding cross-border social ties. It is relatively easy for foreign visitors to access Myanmar through the Thai border, as I discovered on a recent research trip.
I passed three checkpoints between the town of Tak and Mae Sot on a mini-bus and, despite prominent warning signs about scam compounds at the final checkpoint, officers checked documents quickly and let travellers through. This accessibility also makes it simple for scam recruiters, middlemen and some workers to move in and out of Myanmar.
The asymmetric border checkpoints help explain why scam hubs have clustered in Karen State, where Thai police estimate up to 100,000 people work in scam centres, while many northern compounds near China have closed down.
A sign at the final checkpoint before entering Mae Sot in Thailand, warning travellers about cyber scams near the Thai-Myanmar border. Xu Peng, CC BY-NC-ND
Myanmar’s moving checkpoints
Inside Myanmar’s contested borderlands, checkpoints are not run by a single authority. They are managed by a patchwork of ethnic armed organisations and border guard forces, each of which control their own stretch of road or river.
While these checkpoints focus on ensuring security, they are also a source of income. Local commanders and militias use them to tax goods, vehicles and people, with checkpoints set up, relaxed or moved when alliances or financial interests change.
This fragmented system creates room for scam operators to keep compounds running or to relocate workers and equipment when pressure from the authorities builds, especially when operators share profits with the people manning the checkpoints.
Interviews I have conducted with local scam brokers and police officers in China and Thailand suggest that information about impending crackdowns often circulates through these cross-border networks of recruiters, militias and complicit officials well in advance.
Reporting from Karen State suggests that ethnic militias escorted Chinese scam workers out of hubs such as KK Park and Shwe Kokko ahead of recent raids to cities like Yangon and Mandalay, charging substantial “fees” for safe passage.
South-east Asia’s scam industry bends under pressure, but it does not break. Checkpoints inside Myanmar and at its borders do not close the trade – they help decide where it goes next.
Xu Peng receives funding from the Serious Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) research programme for the project “The Centrality of the Margins: Borderlands, Illicit Economies and Uneven Development”, and from the Cross-border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme for the project “TRACE: Checkpoints, Conflict, and the Politics of Circulation”.
From compelling stories to non-fiction, books can spark ideas that help us navigate the climate crisis. As part of The Conversation’s ongoing Climate Storytelling strand, we asked climate research and creative writing experts to review some of the best new and upcoming titles to look out for in 2026. We’d love to know which ones you enjoy – share your thoughts in the comments below.
Surviving Climate and Chaos: What Dinosaurs Teach Us About Climate Change and Resilience by Evan Jevnikar (December 2025)
Surviving Climate and Chaos offers a refreshing take on dinosaur narratives. While far from the first to guide readers through Mesozoic menageries, Evan Jevnikar contributes a deftly woven history of palaeo-climates alongside the chronological history of the dinosaurs.
Jevnikar shows how dinosaur evolution was intrinsically linked to Earth’s ever-changing climate. Throughout the Mesozoic Era – the “age of reptiles”, which lasted from 252 to 66 million years ago – we see them rise, adapt, and diversify. This was thanks to the way their metabolism and physiology were suited to the warmer, carbon-rich climates of the Triassic period (between 250 and 201 million years ago) and the Jurassic period (201 to 145 million years ago). But the rapid climate change triggered by a fateful asteroid strike (66 million years ago) outpaced the ability of highly specialist dinosaurs (particularly non-flying species) to adapt to a colder and sparser world.
Jevnikar notes how human-influenced climate changes mimic prehistoric catastrophes. Key examples include comparisons between the rising intensity of modern storms and the monsoons of the Triassic period, as well as parallels between carbon-dense volcanic activity throughout Earth’s history and the contemporary mass release of carbon dioxide by people burning fossil fuels.
Jevnikar’s inclusion of actionable solutions is reassuring, though: far from prophesying apocalypse, he couples objective warnings about the influences of climate on ecosystems with remedial steps that humanity can take to reverse some of the damage it has caused. These include reforestation initiatives, carbon capture technology and personal acts of climate consciousness.
Backed by scientific evidence yet communicated clearly enough for people who are not palaeo-climatologists, Jevnikar contemplates our roles as climate stewards in an entertaining and accessible way.
Nathan Bramald is a PhD candidate researching the scientific communication of dinosaurs in literature
Called By the Hills: A Home in the Himalaya by Anuradha Roy (January 2026)
For the past 25 years, novelist and publisher Anuradha Roy has called the Himalaya her home and her world. In Called by the Hills, she invites us up and into the Ranikhet hillside of northern India?, where oxygen fizzes like champagne, leopards stalk the forests and langur monkey troops dance on roofs.
Roy’s absorbing book offers a personal panorama of the region: here is the oak tree I planted, she says, that is where the internet cafe was. Throughout, she tends to her sentences with patience and personality, the same way she tends to her Himalaya-facing garden.
The UK edition, smartly presented by Daunt, includes Roy’s adoring watercolours of the dogs who found their way into her home. A book of wildflowers and kafal berries, Called by the Hills stands as both a gardening memoir and a love letter to an endless forest that now faces an ending, as climate change begins to muddle the seasons.
Dominic O’Key is an English-teaching associate
Despite it All: a Handbook for Climate Hopefuls by Fred Pearce (February 2026)
Journalist and writer Fred Pearce argues that climate action is already underway and that defeatism only narrows our imagination. He does not claim to be writing an academic text, yet he provides clear explanations, with careful sourcing and suggestions for further reading that draw the reader into a wider conversation.
His writing on inequity is particularly strong, especially the Enough for a Decent Life section, which confronts the fact that the wealthiest 10% have driven two-thirds of global warming since 1990. It asks how we meet the basic needs of 8 billion people while protecting the systems that support life.
Pearce’s treatment of technology and geopolitical action is thoughtful, using the global response to the stratospheric ozone hole to show that coordinated action can shift outcomes when it is taken seriously. The book focuses on collective work rather than individual lifestyle tweaks.
His examples illustrate what genuine progress looks like, from Indigenous stewardship to eco-restoration projects. The result is a sustained case for cautious optimism that feels earned rather than wishful.
Sam Illingworth is a professor of creative pedagogies
The climate crisis has a communications problem. How do we tell stories that move people – not just to fear the future, but to imagine and build a better one? This article is part of Climate Storytelling, a series exploring how arts and science can join forces to spark understanding, hope and action.
Frontierlands by Hazel Sheffield (February 2026)
The UK has one of the most concentrated forms of land ownership in the world. People are denied access to thousands of derelict properties, boarded up after factories close or landlords raise rents. Hazel Sheffield calls these unused buildings and properties Britain’s “frontiers”.
Documenting the tremendous obstacles to bringing them into productive use again, yet refusing pessimism, she follows artists, community organisers, bricklayers and car repair people who build with a new ethos. They propose collective ownership and neighbourhood co-production of crafts, festivals, healthy food options, together with affordable, low-carbon retrofitting.
In Frontierlands, Sheffield offers countless ideas for increasing our resilience in the face of late-stage capitalism. She also advocates for building neighbourhoods with better protection against a wetter and hotter climate. It’s a convincing argument: these initiatives will improve the nation’s health as well as its infrastructure.
Stephanie Palmer is a senior lecturer in the school of social sciences
The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit (March 2026)
Rebecca Solnit’s latest work is a powerful meditation on transformation in turbulent times. This slim volume situates today’s polarisation, authoritarian resurgence and reaction against progressive values within a broader historical arc.
The book opens with a moving land-return ceremony to Indigenous Americans and continues with examples of progress achieved through resistance and activism. Through vivid metaphors – caterpillars becoming butterflies, the labour pains of a new world — Solnit argues that the current turmoil signals the dying throes of patriarchy and colonialism.
At its heart, this book is a rallying call for all those who yearn for a just, sustainable and flourishing society. Solnit tells us not to give up hope, reassuring us that these struggles mark the shedding of the old and the birth of a new civilisation. As a sustainability academic, writer and climate-anxious activist myself, it’s just what I needed to hear.
Denise Baden is a professor of sustainable business
Elemental: How We Will Live on a Warming Planet by Arthur Snell (March 2026)
With more than 25 years’ experience in conflict zones and fragile states, Arthur Snell travels from the heat of the Sahel to the Arctic Circle to show how
climate change is coinciding with a breakdown in geopolitical order,
increasing conflict, military spending and violence.
“This is not a book of predictions … [it] is a guide to the future,” he writes. Snell uses the four elements – earth, air, fire and water – to frame climate change as a force reshaping present-day global politics. Drawing on history and current affairs, he paints a picture of climate change as more than “just” an environmental challenge. He outlines how it is reshaping national security, economic stability and even sovereignty.
He connects drought and the scramble for critical minerals to food insecurity, reminding readers that land remains central to survival. Rising temperatures and air quality pressures drive migration, while wildfires and the “pyrocene” expose vulnerabilities in fossil fuel-dependent economies. Water, meanwhile, links floods in Asia to Arctic ambitions.
Snell’s analysis is rigorous yet human, resisting fatalism and emphasising how outcomes depend on governance and cooperation: choices we make today. Elemental is an interdisciplinary masterclass on power and responsibility in the 21st century.
Mary Johnstone-Louis is a sustainable business researcher.
The Given World by Melissa Harrison (May 2026)
The Given World is a novel rooted in nature. Set in the fictional English village of Lower Eodham, bird song and wildlife are observed in fine detail, interwoven with a well-paced plot. The narrative skips about characters, with each chapter (except the last) focusing on a different village inhabitant or visitor.
Somewhat sparse dialogue gives space to focus on the inner world of these people, with hints at their lives and the connections between them. There is a slightly dark tone, with mysteries we need to wait to understand about difficulties the characters have experienced or may in the future.
Set in post-COVID, modern day life, climate change is an undertone from the start. There are references to wildfires on the news, as well as the consumerist or anti-consumerist leanings of different characters. Mention of the now-closed wholefood vegetarian restaurant chain Cranks made me smile, remembering visits with my father before veganism went mainstream.
The Given World is a thoughtful and thought-provoking story which will resonate with those interested in our reliance on, and complex relationship with, the natural world.
Rosie Robison is a professor of social sustainability
My Body is a Meadow by Bethany Handley (May 2026)
I went through various emotions reading My Body is a Meadow – from angry and amused through to ashamed and annoyed. This reflects the author’s own journey to “radical acceptance” of being Disabled. Disabled like the environment is. Disabled like the flora and fauna that inhibit it are.
The book is at times a painfully honest assessment of how the damage done to Disabled people mirrors that being done to the environment, the barriers both encounter and in turn how these barriers could be overcome.
Handley is also a poet, which is reflected in the many beautiful turns of phrase that litter the book. Some of the points seem a little over worked – but perhaps necessarily so. This is a message that needs to germinate, take root and be planted in people’s minds in order for people and the planet to flourish.
Maria Kett is a professor of humanitarianism and social inclusion
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
