environmental studies | political theory
The Birth of Energy Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work
CARA NEW DAGGETT In The Birth of Energy Cara New Daggett traces the genealogy of contemporary notions of energy back to the nineteenth-century science of thermodynamics to challenge the underlying logic that informs today’s uses of energy. These early resource-based concepts of power first emerged during the Industrial Revolution and were tightly bound to Western capitalist domination and the politics of industrialized work. As Daggett shows, thermodynamics was deployed as an imperial science to govern fossil fuel use, labor, and colonial expansion, in part through a hierarchical ordering of humans and nonhumans. By systematically excavating the historical connection between energy and work, Daggett argues that only by transforming the politics of work—most notably, the veneration of waged work— will we be able to confront the Anthropocene’s energy problem. Substituting one source of energy for another will not ensure a habitable planet; rather, the concepts of energy and work themselves must be decoupled. ELEMENTS A series edited by Stacy Alaimo and Nicole Starosielski
THE BIRTH OF ENERGY Fossil Fuels,
Thermodynamics,
&
the Politics of Work
CARA NEW DAGGETT
September 272 pages, 7 illustrations paper, 978-1-4780-0632-9 $26.95/£20.99 cloth, 978-1-4780-0501-8 $99.95/£83.00
Cara New Daggett is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech.
political theory | war | environment
Savage Ecology War and Geopolitics at the End of the World
JAIRUS VICTOR GROVE Jairus Victor Grove contends that we live in a world made by war. In Savage Ecology he offers an ecological theory of geopolitics that argues that contemporary global crises are better understood when considered within the larger history of international politics. Infusing international relations with the theoretical interventions of fields ranging from new materialism to political theory, Grove shows how political violence is the principal force behind climate change, mass extinction, slavery, genocide, extractive capitalism, and other catastrophes. Grove analyzes a variety of subjects—from improvised explosive devices and drones to artificial intelligence and brain science—to outline how geopolitics is the violent pursuit of a way of living that comes at the expense of others. Pointing out that much of the damage being done to the earth and its inhabitants stems from colonialism, Grove suggests that the Anthropocene may be better described by the term Eurocene. The key to changing the planet’s trajectory, Grove proposes, begins by acknowledging both the earth-shaping force of geopolitical violence and the demands apocalypses make for fashioning new ways of living.
August 376 pages, 7 illustrations paper, 978-1-4780-0484-4 $28.95/£22.99 cloth, 978-1-4780-0421-9 $104.95/£87.00
Jairus Victor Grove is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Hawai‘i Research Center for Future Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
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