Heat, a History - by On Barak

About the Book

"With an unrelenting barrage of record-breaking temperatures dominating the headlines, an enigma arises--despite the flames licking at our feet, most people fail to fully grasp the gravity of environmental overheating. What acquired habits and mechanisms grant us the capacity to turn a blind eye with an air of detachment? Heat: A History shows how scientific methods of accounting for heat and modern forms of acclimatization have desensitized us to climate change. Ubiquitous air conditioning, shifts in urban planning, and changes in mobility all served as temporary remedies for escaping the heat in hotspots such as the twentieth-century Middle East. However, all these measures have ultimately fuelled not only greenhouse gas emissions but also a collective myopia regarding the impact of rising temperatures. Identifying the scientific abstractions and economic and cultural forces that have numbed our responses this book charts a way forward out of short-term thinking and towards meaningful action"--

Book Synopsis

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2025

"In this provocative book, both witty and profoundly serious, Barak provides a human-scale history of the causes and consequences of rising temperatures in the Middle East. He brings the abstractions of carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions to vivid, tangible life"."--Foreign Affairs

Despite the flames of record-breaking temperatures licking at our feet, most people fail to fully grasp the gravity of environmental overheating. What acquired habits and conveniences allow us to turn a blind eye with an air of detachment? Using examples from the hottest places on earth, Heat, a History shows how scientific methods of accounting for heat and modern forms of acclimatization have desensitized us to climate change.

Ubiquitous air conditioning, shifts in urban planning, and changes in mobility have served as temporary remedies for escaping the heat in hotspots such as the twentieth-century Middle East. However, all of these measures have ultimately fueled not only greenhouse gas emissions but also a collective myopia regarding the impact of rising temperatures. Identifying the scientific, economic, and cultural forces that have numbed our responses, this book charts a way out of short-term thinking and towards meaningful action.

From the Back Cover

"This elegant and witty book brings the galactic scale of 'warming' down to the intimate level of heat, sweat, and bodies, thus inviting the reader to ask why we tend to prefer abstractions to embodied experiences, even for such a vital matter as the temperature of our world."--Arjun Appadurai, author of The Future as Cultural Fact

"The juggernaut of climate change stalks our planet, but heat is intimate and local. On Barak's brilliant analysis of the tension between this global abstraction and human experience points to a more compassionate politics. He turns the history of the Middle East's complex relationship to temperature into a guide for the future."--Julia Adeney Thomas, editor of Altered Earth: Getting the Anthropocene Right and coauthor of The Anthropocene: A Multidisciplinary Approach.

"Everyone talks about heat these days, but what does it actually feel like? What does it mean in the lives of people? Choosing the hottest part of the world for Heat, a History, On Barak investigates how heat and fossil fuels have impacted each other in the Middle East, revealing new configurations of power--in Palestine, over women, from the US and the Gulf--in the process. Relentlessly fascinating in the way only the best environmental history can be, Heat is packed with surprising and illuminating details. It is the most original history of both the Middle East and the climate crisis written to date."--Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline

"'Heat' is a notion with many different meanings. Focusing on the Middle East, Barak brilliantly explores some of these meanings by revealing how they interconnect and generate vicious cycles that make social change and ecological progress increasingly difficult. Heat, a History is a pathbreaking work that will have a significant impact on historical and social-scientific debates."--Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History

Review Quotes

"In this provocative book, both witty and profoundly serious. . . . Barak brings the abstractions of carbon footprints and greenhouse gas emissions to vivid, tangible life."

-- "Foreign Affairs, Best Books of 2025"

"On Barak brings a welcome humanistic, historical perspective to the challenges facing the region and its peoples, reflecting on those local traditions and ways of coping with heat that were systematically displaced by modern technologies and architectural practices sweeping through the Middle East during the twentieth century."

-- "Middle East Journal"

About the Author

On Barak is a social and cultural historian of science and technology and Professor of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. He is author of four previous books, including Powering Empire: How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization.