
How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times
A Manual for our Times
Polity Press
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 27. March 2020
Book
Hardback
250 pages
978-1-5095-4138-6 (ISBN)
Description
What if our civilization were to collapse? Not many centuries into the future, but in our own lifetimes? Most people recognize that we face huge challenges today, from climate change and its potentially catastrophic consequences to a plethora of socio-political problems, but we find it hard to face up to the very real possibility that these crises could produce a collapse of our entire civilization. Yet we now have a great deal of evidence to suggest that we are up against growing systemic instabilities that pose a serious threat to the capacity of human populations to maintain themselves in a sustainable environment.
In this important book, Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens confront these issues head-on. They examine the scientific evidence and show how its findings, often presented in a detached and abstract way, are connected to people's ordinary experiences - joining the dots, as it were, between the Anthropocene and our everyday lives. In so doing they provide a valuable guide that will help everyone make sense of the new and potentially catastrophic situation in which we now find ourselves. Today, utopia has changed sides: it is the utopians who believe that everything can continue as before, while realists put their energy into making a transition and building local resilience. Collapse is the horizon of our generation. But collapse is not the end - it's the beginning of our future. We will reinvent new ways of living in the world and being attentive to ourselves, to other human beings and to all our fellow creatures.
Reviews / Votes
"An explosive book that everyone should buy and read as soon as possible."L'Obs "This is not the kind of book you can read and put down with a shrug of the shoulders: it is a book that will overwhelm you."
Canard Enchaine
'This is an important book. The authors avoid apocalyptic scaremongering but present compelling arguments to show that our society is increasingly vulnerable to insidious but potentially devastating setbacks - and that, because our world is now so interconnected, any collapse would cascade globally. It will leave readers deeply anxious about where we are heading. But it deserves a wide readership among all concerned citizens - and, even more, among those who can influence policy.'
Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
'It's high time and a cause for rejoicing that this matter-of-fact, warm-blooded guide to societal collapse is now available in English. The sane, comprehensive clarity brought by Pablo Servigne and Raphael Stevens will, I expect, liberate much practical ingenuity in the US and other countries. Four decades developing the Work That Reconnects and Deep Ecology Work around the world has taught me that confronting together our fears and losses with open eyes generates solidarity and collective intelligence.'
Joanna Macy, co-author of Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to The Work That Reconnects An explosive book that everyone should buy and read as soon as possible.
L'Obs This is not the kind of book you can read and put down with a shrug of the shoulders: it is a book that will overwhelm you.
Canard Enchain??
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 214 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
404 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5095-4138-6 (9781509541386)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Pablo Servigne | Rapha?l Stevens
How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times
A Manual for our Times
Book
03/2020
1st Edition
Polity Press
€19.00
Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
03/2020
1st Edition
Wiley
€12.99
Available for download
Persons
Pablo Servigne is an agronomist with a PhD in biology. He is a specialist in questions of collapse, transition, agro-ecology and mutual aid.
Raphaël Stevens is an eco-adviser. An expert in the resilience of socio-ecological systems, he is cofounder of the consultancy agency Greenloop.
Author
Translation
Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, West Sussex, UK