In a world beset by climatic emergencies, the continuing resonance of the flood story is perhaps easy to understand. Whether in the tortured alpha male intensity of Russell Crowe's Noah, in Darren Aronofsky's eponymous 2014 film, or other recent derivations, the biblical narrative has become a lightning rod for gathering environmental anxieties. However, Philip C. Almond's masterful exploration of Western cultural history uncovers a far more complex Noah than is commonly recognised: not just the father of humanity but also the first shipbuilder, navigator, zookeeper, farmer, grape grower, and wine maker. Noah's pivotal significance is revealed as much in his forgotten secular as in his religious receptions, and their major impact on such disciplines as geology, geography, biology, and zoology. While Noah's many interpretations over two millennia might seem to offer a common message of hope, the author's sober conclusion is that deliverance now lies not in divine but rather in human hands.

‘Philip Almond is a world-leading authority on the history of religion and a highly versatile scholar. It is this versatility which makes him such a suitable choice for a subject as massive and multifarious as the reception history of Noachic themes in Western thought. There is nothing in the literature as broad-ranging and accessible as this book. It has the potential to become the established leader in the field, with a wide market and an enduring shelf life. There is a rich comprehensiveness in the book that is unrivalled in the scholarly literature. It ranges from the flood stories of antiquity, including the Gilgamesh legend, to the modern biblical theme park in Kentucky devoted to the Ark. Nor does Almond confine his exploration to the Christian understanding of Noah and the flood, but also includes substantial discussion of the story's exegesis in the rabbinical tradition and by Islamic interpreters. Moreover, the book broadens out beyond hermeneutics to explore the relationship of the Noah story to a wider history of notionally secular disciplines – geography; proto-anthropology; demography broadly conceived, and the peopling of the world; zoology; geology; mythography; and even maritime technology. Philip Almond is a scholarly phenomenon, always arresting in the works I have read – as well as authoritative – and his latest book offers a compelling revisionist take on the conventional history of Western knowledge.'

Colin Kidd - Professor of History, University of St Andrews, author of The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000

‘Philip Almond's book seeks to demonstrate how a well-known biblical story – specifically the flood narrative in Genesis 6–9 with its main character Noah – has made and continues to make an impact upon Western ideas and thought, both religious and secular. It breaks new ground in charting the impact of the flood story in secular thinking. Its coverage of a wide range of literatures – in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions of Noah – invites the reader to partake in the rich conversations, controversies, and debates among the many interpreters of the flood account. While there are resources available for Noah's reception history, this intriguing book goes further in arguing that the impact of the biblical narrative of the flood extends well beyond religious circles. It would make for a good sourcebook for students in religious studies and will be accessible too to readers interested in how Noah continues, in multiple contexts, to be an important figure in contemporary culture.'

Philip Yoo - Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies, University of British Columbia, author of Ezra and the Second Wilderness and co-editor of To Gaul, to Greece and into Noah's Ark