The Shock of the Anthropocene The Earth, History, and Us

About this book

Scientists tell us that the Earth has entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene. We are not facing simply an environmental crisis, but a geological revolution of human origin. In two centuries, our planet has tipped into a state unknown for millions of years. How did we get to this point? Refuting the convenient view of a "human species" that upset the Earth system unaware of what it was doing, The Shock of the Anthropocene proposes a new account of modernity that shakes up many accepted ideas: on the supposedly recent date of "environmental awareness", on previous challenges to industrialism, on the manufacture of consumerism and the energy "transition", as well as on the role of the military in environmental destruction. Through a dialogue between science and history, the authors draw an ecological balance-sheet of a developmental model that has become unsustainable, and explore paths for living and acting politically in the Anthropocene.

Contents

PART ONE WHAT'S IN A WORD?
Chapter 1. Welcome to the Anthropocene
Chapter 2. Thinking with Gaia: Towards Environmental Humanities

PART TWO SPEAKING FOR THE EARTH, GUIDING HUMANITY: Deconstructing the Geocratic Grand Narrative of the Anthropocene
Chapter 3. Clio, the Earth and the Anthropocenologists
Chapter 4. Who Is the Anthropos?

PART THREE WHAT HISTORIES FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE?
Chapter 5. Thermocene: A Political History of CO₂
Chapter 6. Thanatocene: Power and Ecocide
Chapter 7. Phagocene: Consuming the Planet
Chapter 8. Phronocene: Grammars of Environmental Reflexivity
Chapter 9. Agnotocene: Externalizing Nature, Economizing the World
Chapter 10. Capitalocene: A Combined History of Earth System and World-Systems
Chapter 11. Polemocene: Resisting the Deterioration of the Earth since 1750

Conclusion: Surviving and Living the Anthropocene

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Biography

Christophe Bonneuil is a historian at the CNRS and edits the Anthropocene series for Editions du Seuil. His publications include Une Autre Histoire des 'Trentes Glorieuses': Modernisation, Contestations et Pollutions dans la France d'Apres-Guerre, and Sciences, Techniques et Societe.

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, formerly a lecturer at Imperial College, London, is now also a historian at the CNRS. He is the author of L'Apocalypse Joyeuse: Une Histoire du Risque Technologique, and Introduction a l'Histoire Environnementale.