Inhuman Nature

The relationship between social thought and earth processes is an oddly neglected part of the social sciences. This exciting book offers to make good the deficit by exploring how human activity and planetary processes impact upon each other. The book: • Provides a much needed in-depth inquiry into the volatile relationship between human life and the physical earth • Considers the social and political implications of consistently thinking of the earth as a dynamic planet • Asks what we can learn from natural catastrophes and from those who have lived through them • Offers an inter-disciplinary perspective bringing together insights from sociology, geography, philosophy and earth / life sciences. The result is a landmark work that will be of interest to readers across the social sciences and humanities as well as environmental studies and disaster studies.

Drawing on an impressive array of philosophical, social, and natural science sources Nigel Clark′s magnificent Inhuman Nature provides a compelling account of the respects in which modern ways of living are perpetually exposed to unpredictable natural processes and transformations and the manner in which communities have responded with care and hospitality to the desperate plight of othersBarry SmartProfessor of Sociology, Portmouth University Inhuman Nature: Sociable Life on a Dynamic Planet is a watershed for social theory. Nigel Clark’s engaging book brings together earth systems science, philosophy, and history to challenge the longstanding impasse created through the philosophical separation of humans from the world. This book does not simply ‘take nature into account’: fires, floods, volcanoes, climate change, and hurricanes take centre-stage in this thorough re-writing of the organic and inorganic. Inhuman Nature asks the most important questions of our time, and is a must-read for anyone who takes nature and our future on this planet seriouslyMyra HirdProfessor of Sociology, Queen’s University Canada This is possibly one of the most important books you are ever likely to read, particularly if you have been duped into thinking ‘nature’ and ‘planet earth’ are merely benevolent forces at the mercy of an insane, disordered humanity. According to Clark this just-so story illustrates our twin bad habits of focussing almost exclusively on human powers (exaggerating them wildly) and developing a blindness to the agency and powers of non-humans. This book reveals what the world is like when we come to our senses, literally. You wont look back (the view is better)Adrian FranklinProfessor of Sociology, University of Tasmania, Nigel Clark offers in this book a unique position, and radical, on the links between human and non-human to question the contemporary "environmental crisis". The ambitious question the author asks is: How to live with others and things in this context of profound insecurity? ...Above all, this book is incredibly stimulating.

Nigel Clark is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the Open University