The Crises of Civilization: Exploring Global and Planetary Histories

ISBN-13: 9780199486731 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 321 str.

Dipesh Chakrabarty

Opis

Societies that have long wrestled with the legacies of colonialism now confront both a crisis of globalization and a crisis of climate. This collection of essays by a leading scholar of postcolonial studies and environmental humanities examines these distinct - but interrelated - crises side by side. The first series of essays, 'Global Worlds', details how varied ideas of civilization and humanism have shaped ideas about a global humanity in the lingering twilightof the European empires - and outlines the conflicts and connections that arise from global encounters in our postcolonial age. The essays of 'The Planetary Human' explore the significance of planetary climate change for humanistic and postcolonial thought. The crisis of climate change demands notonly critiques of capitalism and inequality, but also new thinking about the human species as a whole — and about our patterns of justice, our writing of history, and our relationship with nature in the age of the Anthropocene.

After the murderous twentieth century and the long twilight of the European empires, humanity has confronted both a crisis of globalization and a crisis of climate. This book explores the challenges posed by colonialism's end, globalization, and climate change to our ideas of civilization, history, justice, nature, and humanity itself.

O autorze

Dipesh Chakrabarty is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, US. His books include Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal 1890-1940 (1989), Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (2000), and The Calling of History: Sir Jadunath Sarkar and His Empire of Truth ( 2015). He is a founding member of the editorial collective Subaltern Studies and a consulting editor of Critical Inquiry. He also holds an honorary D. Litt degree from the University of London (2010), and an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Antwerp (2011). He received the 2014 Toynbee Prize for his contributions to global history and delivered the Tanner Lectures in Human Values at Yale in 2015.