It's been said that after 9 11 the 2008 financial crash and the Covid-19 pandemic 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 fear. He takes us through the French Revolution and the social
movements of the nineteenth century to modern market crashes Cold War paranoia and the AIDS
pandemic 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? As Peckham demonstrates fear can challenge as well as cement authority. Some
crises have destroyed societies others have been the making of them. Through the stories of
the people and the moments that changed history Fear: An Alternative History of the World
reveals how fear and panic made us who we are.
