In an evocative polemic the author traces the ways in which man-made fire, ‘incendiarism against creation’, has marked the planet in the last century. Starting with the burning Amazon forests but taking in Grenfell, he looks back to personal experiences of war-time bombing, knowledge of Hiroshima, Vietnam and Star Wars. As the Cold War ended, human detonation became the new risk. Prosperity, which should have provided a shield, has, instead, engulfed the whole world in new combustions.
