Przemysław Wielgosz looks at moments when environmental disaster and social crisis pushed political systems to breaking point and, sometimes, opened the way to fundamental change. The book moves from late-medieval Europe and seventeenth-century China to capitalism, climate crisis and the present.
The cover starts with a literal catastrophe: the collapse of the Tay Bridge in 1879. I didn’t want the archival image to sit there politely as historical evidence, so I cut into it with colour and oversized type, turning history into something more immediate and agitated. The book argues that catastrophe is never just catastrophe. It can also be the moment when things start to move.
Year: 2026
Page size: 137×207 mm
Pages: 320
Paper: Munken Print White 15 90 g
Binding: paperback
Cover material: Keaykolour Snow White 250 g
Cover material: Keaykolour Snow White 250 g
Typefaces: Freehouse, Paperback (body)
