American Scientist

MOUNTAINS OF FIRE: The Menace, Meaning, and Magic of Volcanoes. Clive Oppenheimer. 352 pp. University of Chicago Press, 2023. $27.50.

Clive Oppenheimer is right: Volcanoes get a bad rap. Much like the famed volcanologist, I’ve spent much of my adult life pondering, admiring, and promoting volcanoes—and, admittedly, also warning people about them. Yet, as Oppenheimer emphasizes throughout his new book, Mountains of Fire: The Menace, Meaning, and Magic of Volcanoes, if it weren’t for volcanoes, life would be very different for humans and our planet.

Oppenheimer, a professor at Cambridge University, has become the face of volcanology over the past decade. He has been featured in multiple documentaries by the famed filmmaker Werner Herzog, including Into the Inferno, which was inspired by Oppenheimer’s previous book Eruptions That Shook the World. He coauthored one of the best college texts on volcanoes, picking up the mantle from his PhD advisor, the late Peter Francis. He is also an accomplished researcher, contributing to our understanding of the climate effects of large eruptions and helping to improve the remote observation of eruptions.

In the opening section of Mountains of Fire, Oppenheimer writes, “There is no doubt: volcanoes changed me, and I believe strongly that they offer us all a different and unexpectedly humanizing way of seeing the world.” Indeed, this sentiment drives much of the text and illustrates his passion for the subject. Although methods have changed since Sir William Hamilton peered into the crater of Vesuvius in the late 1700s, it is this fascination with volcanoes (and the sometimes questionable decisions that come with that fascination) that links generations of volcano scientists.

Oppenheimer is a proponent of the power of the “joy and significance of discovery.” Mountains of Fire is built like a memoir and a history book sewn into one cohesive narrative that celebrates that joy. He uses his experiences at far-flung and highly hazardous locales to take us on a journey through both time and space, where he can tell the tales of volcanology’s evolution as a discipline, placed alongside his own growth as a scientist.

This parallel structure drives the narrative. As we learn about the origins of volcanology, we are transported with then-graduate student Oppenheimer visiting the crater of Italy’s famous Mount Stromboli in the Aeolian Islands. Even as Oppenheimer admits that perhaps he shouldn’t have been so cavalier in exploring the crater of an erupting volcano, we learn that other volcanologists hundreds, even thousands, of years prior did the same thing in nearly the same place, all in the name of understanding how Stromboli works.

Oppenheimer continues to find himself standing in the same places as famous eruption-minded explorers of yesteryear. While perched on the edge of the crater on the remote volcano Erebus on Antarctica’s Ross Island, he discovers the remains of Raymond Priestley’s camp more than 100 years after the British explorer was there. Alternating between the historical record and Oppenheimer’s personal experiences in these volcanic locales amplifies the short and long timescales of volcanology. There are a few spots in the book where this structure is stretched a little thin, such as comparing people fleeing wars in the Afar Triangle in East Africa with the movement of pyroclastic flows—but most of the time one can imagine Oppenheimer trying to see these vistas through the eyes of volcanology’s progenitors.

Not surprisingly, the challenge of monitoring volcanoes before, during, and after an eruption plays a key role in the action throughout the book. We find ourselves in the volcano observatory on Montserrat in the West Indies as Oppenheimer is embroiled in a debate over whether to evacuate people from near the restless Soufrière Hills volcano. It is clear that this is more than just a scientific argument: Decades of research, changing monitoring methods, and human egos all clash, and Oppenheimer gives us a behind-the-curtains view of difficult decisions being made in a crisis. As Oppenheimer puts it, “Science is not enough to protect communities menaced by volcanoes.” The power of nature is not to be forgotten or taken lightly, something Oppenheimer notes, even while pushing the limits of good sense in the name of exploration.

The concept of our “geoheritage” (that is, the legacy of geological materials, features, and events) is central to Mountains of Fire. Oppenheimer takes us to Africa to find obsidian—volcanic glass—which was used to make some of the first tools of our ancestors. He describes the spiritual importance of the Paektu volcano on the North Korea–China border, which has been taken by both sides of the conflict to symbolize the origins of the Korean nation. He links massive eruptions in Iceland to the conversion of the population to Christianity around 1000 CE. For Oppenheimer, volcanoes are intimately linked to these moments of historical importance.

This direct connection between volcanoes and humanity is what makes Mountains of Fire so compelling. Oppenheimer tackles how deeply intertwined human history, from its cradle in the East African Rift to modern times, is with the relentless geological processes that create volcanoes. Toward the end of the book, he muses that “in their long and varied lives, [volcanoes] have actually sustained humanity, shaped evolutionary paths we have taken and inspired us to ask bigger questions about our place in the universe.”

It isn’t hard to see the connection between humans and volcanism when you know where to look. Oppenheimer mentions the ways that the 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia impacted global climate, leading to famine and revolution (and even influencing Mary Shelley’s writing of Frankenstein). He grapples with modern-day “volcano diplomacy” between North Korea and the West when exploring Paektu, a volcano whose massive eruptions have made it a deeply significant place for the Korean populace. The ability to live in the deep Sahara wouldn’t be possible without the volcanic deposits of Tibesti, another locale that Oppenheimer is drawn to explore. In all these cases, society, history, and volcanism are intertwined.

Oppenheimer’s personal journey from student to seasoned researcher, alongside the volcanoes that act as mile markers in his life, is interwoven with a constant feeling of excitement. Oppenheimer has explored many volcanoes that few people have ever visited: remote calderas in Chad and Eritrea, in addition to Erebus and Paektu. He views these experiences as vital for continuing to expand our understanding of volcanism.

Along with his simple but potent idea that volcanoes are more than just destroyers, Oppenheimer is also right about the joy of scientific exploration and discovery. We should all take the time to merely observe the world around us, with no other goal than to just see. Keeping one’s mind open to what is there without the guardrails of rigid questions is a vital part of science. Oppenheimer’s Mountains of Fire shows just how fundamental wide-eyed enthusiasm is to the growth of science and our modern society.

One of the most popular comments about Oppenheimer’s appearance in Herzog’s 2007 documentary Encounters at the End of the World—his first foray with Herzog—is that he comes across like the Doctor, the famous (and fictitious) time-hopping character from the long-running BBC show Doctor Who. In Mountains of Fire, a time-travelling journey is exactly what you get. It is more than a science book: It is both a scientific journey through thousands of years of volcanic exploration and discovery, as well as a personal journey through Oppenheimer’s own illustrious career. Even if you don’t love volcanoes as passionately as the author, the trip across time that the book offers provides a vicarious thrill.