The shock of the Anthropocene: the Earth, history and us

Dissecting the new theoretical buzzword of the ';Anthropocene'The Earth has entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene.

What we are facing is not only 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, this book proposes the first critical history of the Anthropocene, shaking up many accepted ideas: about our supposedly recent ';environmental awareness,' about previous challenges to industrialism, about the manufacture of ignorance and consumerism, about so-called energy transitions, as well as about the role of the military in environmental destruction.

In a dialogue between science and history, The Shock of the Anthropocene dissects a new theoretical buzzword and explores paths for living and acting politically in this rapidly developing geological epoch.From the Hardcover edition.