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Lewis put it 80 years ago, in “The Abolition of Man,” “The serious magical endeavor and the serious scientific endeavor are twins: One was sickly and died, the other strong and throve.”

Most of what we could call our charismatic megaflora was hauled in here from elsewhere, and it throve.

Such is the case for the Syrian city of Mari, which throve during the Bronze Age under the rule of King Zimri-Lim and was second in status only to King Hammurabi’s Babylon among its contemporaries.

Japan’s economy wilted while Germany’s throve, adding several hundred thousand clean-energy jobs—part of the energy transition’s net macroeconomic benefit.

It’s a reminder, however, that even in the most horrific of circumstances, something remarkable more than survived; it throve and grew and eventually reached around the Earth.