Nigel Clark & Bronislaw Szerszynski 
Planetary Social Thought 
The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences

The Anthropocene has emerged as perhaps the scientific concept of the new millennium. Going further than earlier conceptions of the human-environment relationship, Anthropocene science proposes that human activity is tipping the whole Earth system into a new state, with unpredictable consequences. Social life has become a central ingredient in the dynamics of the planet itself.

How should the social sciences respond to the opportunities and challenges posed by this development? In this innovative book, Clark and Szerszynski argue that social thinkers need to revise their own presuppositions about the social: to understand it as the product of a dynamic planet, self-organizing over deep time. They outline ‘planetary social thought’: a transdisciplinary way of thinking social life with and through the Earth. Using a range of case studies, they show how familiar social processes can be radically recast when looked at through a planetary lens, revealing how the world-transforming powers of human social life have always depended on the forging of relations with the inhuman potentialities of our home planet.

Presenting a social theory of the planetary, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in humanity’s relation to the changing Earth.

Table of Content

Introduction: What Planet Are You On?
Chapter 1: Earth at the Threshold
Chapter 2: Who Speaks through the Earth?
Chapter 3: Planetary Social Life in the Making
Chapter 4: What is Planetary Social Thought?
Chapter 5: Inhuman Modernity, Earthly Violence
Chapter 6: Terra Mobilis
Chapter 7: Unearthing Worlds, Decolonizing the Planet
Chapter 8: Conclusion

About the author

Nigel Clark is Professor of Human Geography at Lancaster University.

Bronislaw Szerszynski is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University.