The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us [Paperback]

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 Anthropocenedissects a new theoretical buzzword and explores paths for living and acting politically in this rapidly developing geological epoch.“This is the first book to seriously come to terms—philosophically and psychologically as well as scientifically—with the overwhelming planetary transformation implied by the word ‘Anthropocene.’ Bonneuil and Fressoz have done humanity a great service by thinking through the startling issues raised by the fact that our species has launched the entire ecosphere onto a new and frightening trajectory.” 
—Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute

“This bold, brilliantly argued history of the Anthropocene epoch is a corrective to cosy thinking about humanity’s grave disruptions to Earth systems … [Bonneuil and Fressoz] call for a ‘new environmental humanities,’ and a shift away from market-based approaches that feed the beast.”
—Barbara Kiser,Nature

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