In 1947, the Doomsday Clock was created by a group of atomic scientists to symbolise the perils facing humanity from nuclear weapons. Sixty years on, in 2007, after many readjustments, it was set at five minutes before the final bell. The reasons given by the scientists included – for the first time – new developments in the life sciences and nanotechnology, and the threat of climate change (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 17 January 2007, accessed online 3 March 2011). In 2010, with some evidence of movement towards arms and climate control, the Clock was taken back to six minutes to midnight. The scientists declared: ‘For the first time in decades we have an opportunity to free ourselves from the terror of nuclear weapons and to slow drastic changes to our shared global environment.’ They encouraged ‘scientists to continue their engagement with these issues and make their analysis widely known’, and were confident enough to assert: ‘We are poised to bend the arc of history’ (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 14 January 2010, accessed online 3 March 2011). It is highly unlikely that the atomic scientists would include historians among those ‘poised to bend the arc of history’, and even less likely that most historians would want to be included. However, this book takes the contrary view, arguing for the necessity of history as a science in a pandisciplinary response to the ongoing crisis.