A Format paperback 178mm x 11mm with flaps
208 pages
22 April 2022
ISBN 978-1911648413
Cover design © Luke Bird
Cover photo: detail from Ice cave, Scott Base, Ross Island, Antarctica, December 7, 1975 by Eliot Porter © 1990 Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Photo © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra / Bridgeman Images
From Richard Seymour, one of the UK’s leading public intellectuals, comes a characteristic blend of forensic insight and analysis, personal journey, and a vivid respect for the natural world.
A planetary fever-dream. An environmental awakening that is also a sleep-walking, unsteadily weaving between history, earth science, psychoanalysis, evolution, biology, art and politics. A search for transcendence, beyond the illusory eternal present.
These essays chronicle the kindling of ecological consciousness in a confessed ignoramus. They track the first enchantment of the author, his striving to comprehend the coming catastrophe, and his attempt to formulate a new global sensibility in which we value anew what unconditionally matters.
Richard’s book The Twittering Machine was a Bookseller Book of the Week, and received rave reviews in the Guardian, Observer, FT, Spectator and Tatler.
Richard’s previous book, Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics, sold over 9,000 copies and was named one of the Best Books of 2016 by Times Higher Education.
Praise
‘What thinker would you bring to an earth on fire? You would not want to leave Richard Seymour at home: he is essential company for an age of compound catastrophes. In these essays, he brings his trademark mix of psychoanalysis and Marxism, erudition and curiosity, pessimism and wonder, intimacy and sublimity to bear on the ecological crisis. They will keep you focused as the flames rise higher.’
—Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline and White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism
‘Richard Seymour’s latest book, which consists of urgent, eloquent bulletins from the catastrophic future into which we are currently being blown back at such a rapidly accelerating rate, is a characteristically cool-headed critique of capitalism, but also a passionate, often profoundly affecting threnody to that which it so cruelly destroys. The Disenchanted Earth combines Marxism’s cold and warm streams to brilliant effect, finding beauty and hope in the ugly, hopeless situation to which we appear to have condemned ourselves as a species. Seymour’s attitude of militant melancholia is exactly what is needed in these times.‘
—Matthew Beaumont, author of The Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City
‘A rousing and impassioned plea for climate sanity. A howl of grief and a rallying cry.’
—Cal Flyn, Author of Islands of Abandonment: Life in the post-human landscape
‘This book made me anxious, gave me nightmares, and threw me into a terrible rage. It’s excellent — I’ve been recommending it to everyone.’
—Anouchka Grose, psychoanalyst and author of A Guide to Eco-Anxiety: How to Protect the Planet and Your Mental Health
‘A haunting set of meditations on the almost unthinkable ecological crises that now engulf us, and their relentless political and economic causes. This is a book for anyone who refuses to turn away from truths that are as important as they are discomforting.’
—William Davies, author of Unprecedented?: How Covid-19 Revealed the Politics of Our Economy
‘One of the most consistently brilliant and lyrical thinkers writing today turns his attention to the climate catastrophe – and the results are minatory and indispensable.’
—China Miéville, author of October: The Story of the Russian Revolution
‘Incisive. Truly radical. Full of short sentences and important insights. Seymour grabs environmentalism by the scruff of the neck. In thrall to its catastrophism, he also wants to save it from apocalyptic nihilism. You won’t agree with all he says; nor should you. But you will always want to engage.’
—Fred Pearce, environment writer and author of The Last Generation: How nature will take her revenge for climate change
‘The present-day ecological predicament entails the need to act immediately—within a few years—to avert the lasting wreck of our civilization and the climate that hosted it. No writer that I can think of is a better guide to this task than Richard Seymour: here is the quickest of thinkers, operating from the longest-term perspective. The Disenchanted Earth is an indispensable book.‘
—Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision and Utopia or Bust
‘Richard remains one of the sharpest thinkers and most stylish writers on the contemporary Marxist left . . . He is never less that interesting and insightful.’
—Russell Warfield, book reviews editor at Resurgence & Ecologist magazine