Desert notebooks a road map for the end of time

"A book about the literal and figurative end of time and what that means for us as conscious beings, Desert Notebooks looks at how both the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environment and our increasingly unstable global socio-political institutions have led to an existential crisis orders...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ehrenreich, Ben (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2020.
Edition:First hardcover edition.
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Summary:"A book about the literal and figurative end of time and what that means for us as conscious beings, Desert Notebooks looks at how both the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environment and our increasingly unstable global socio-political institutions have led to an existential crisis orders of magnitude greater than any humankind has confronted before. As inhabitants of the Anthropocene what might some of our own histories tell us about how to grapple with apocalypse? And how might the geologies and ecologies of desert spaces inform how we see and act towards time? Employing an elegant, discursive style that interweaves memoir with science writing, creation myths, and history, National Magazine Award winner and The Nation columnist Ben Ehrenreich uses the desolate landscape of the American desert -the main locales for the book are Joshua Tree and Las Vegas- as a springboard to examine how we formulate our concepts of time and what it means to confront the looming apocalypse. Desert Notebooks is a moving confrontation with Deep Time and a meditation on landscape in the face of climate change. Faced with an uncertain future, Ehrenreich argues there is comfort in reflecting on the role we humans have played in our own demise in the past. The difference is that this time the clock may finally be running out for good"--
Physical Description:325 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
ISBN:9781640093539
1640093532
Author Notes:Ben Ehrenreich writes about climate change for The Nation . His work has appeared in Harper's Magazine , The New York Times Magazine , the London Review of Books , and Los Angeles magazine. In 2011, he was awarded a National Magazine Award. His last book, The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine , based on his reporting from the West Bank, was one of The Guardian 's Best Books of 2016. He is also the author of two novels, Ether and The Suitors .