Journal of World History

The Anthropocene is a concept with as many definitions as the authors who write about it. In the three books examined below, the complexity of what the Anthropocene is, what it means, and how to contextualize it is very pronounced. The timescales differ from millions to hundred to tens of years in the past, and then all push through into the future. They variously look at countries, regions, continents, and the entire planet. The authors incorporate many fields other than history to contemplate the Anthropocene, from philosophy of law to stratigraphy and archeology. Despite all of these differing approaches, disparate definitions, and diverse methods of studying the Anthropocene, there is a similar conclusion that each book reaches about what it means for humans and nature in the years to come.

Jeremy Davies' The Birth of the Anthropocene, is a sweeping and ambitious positioning of our current place in the Earth's long history. He argues that it is necessary to understand the Anthropocene as not only a new geological epoch, but also the end of the last one. The Anthropocene is a transition not just a beginning, and a period that [End Page 441] bridges the present and the deep past. Thus, his goal is to contextualize the Anthropocene on a geological timescale; it is both the Anthropocene and the "end-Holocene event." In chapter 5, "An Obituary for the Holocene," he chillingly remarks, "human civilization has existed only in the Holocene so far" (p. 145).

Davies deftly digests deep time and makes it manageable for the reader. He begins by noting the shortfalls in how the media have previously portrayed long stretches of time then delves into the changing ways earth scientists conceptualize the planet's changes from the primordial to the present. He particularly notes the shift among earth scientists from an understanding of the Earth as gradually advancing to its current state to a framework of "neo-catastrophism." Throughout the book, Davies' invokes this concept which holds that, over the history of the planet, "There was no stately, teleological progress towards the arrival of humans. Instead the story has been full of sharp twists and transformations" (p. 9). In his reading, the Anthropocene is not a uniquely anthropocentric occurrence, but rather a continuation of a long pattern of violent fits, starts, and existential luck. He effectively uses this concept in a chapter on the history of the past 640 million years, then zooms in again, to focus on the past 11,700 years, the Holocene.

Jedediah Purdy's After Nature looks at history within a shorter and smaller frame. His book is an exploration of the history of environmental imagination, how it becomes enshrined in law, and how those laws then shape landscapes. Focusing on the United States and beginning in the seventeenth century, Purdy separates environmental imagination into four chronological phases: providential, Romantic, utilitarian, and ecological. Though this historical examination takes up the bulk of the book, the ultimate aim is to prescribe a new environmental vision for the Anthropocene, one that draws on the lessons of the previous four visions. The conclusions he reaches are that humans are most able to enact environmental change through law when the environmental vision on which these laws rest is one that contains both fear and love.

In his conclusion, Purdy adeptly disassembles some options posited to cope with the consequences of the Anthropocene. He first picks apart ideas put forth to ameliorate or assuage the consequences of the Anthropocene with technology, and then does the same with suggestions of how to cope with...