Books about life in the Anthropocene

New years that end in zeros often prompt longer-range reflections. Not just “What does the New Year hold?” but “What might the new decade bring?” (as with 2020) or even “What should we hope for in the new century or new millennium?” (as happened with 2000).

One of the many new books about the Anthropocene.

And when that turn in the calendar coincides with unprecedented and catastrophic wildfires, such as those having ravaged large parts of Australia, then an even more foreboding question might be asked: In what new age are we living?

The titles selected for this month’s bookshelf provide several different answers to this last question, but all agree that the name of this new age is the Anthropocene, the geological age in which humans are leaving the most indelible marks on the planet.

It has been three years since Yale Climate Connections’ first bookshelf on the Anthropocene. All 16 of the titles listed below – 12 with covers and blurbs, four without – have been published since then. This newer set of titles also considers the Anthropocene from a wider variety of perspectives: the Earth and life sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts.

Read the story from Yale Climate Connections by Michael Svoboda - “Books about life in the Anthropocene.”