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Full Description
Impeccably researched and masterfully written, this book explains how and why humanity is driving itself off the cliff. — Dahr Jamail, author, The End of Ice
Weaving together findings from a wide range of disciplines, Power traces how four key elements developed to give humans extraordinary power: tool making ability, language, social complexity, and the ability to harness energy sources -- most significantly, fossil fuels. It asks whether we have, at this point, overpowered natural and social systems, and if we have, what we can do about it.
Has Homo sapiens — one species among millions — become powerful enough to threaten a mass extinction and disrupt the Earth's climate? Why have we developed so many ways of oppressing one another? Can we change our relationship with power to avert ecological catastrophe, reduce social inequality, and stave off collapse?
These questions — and their answers — will determine our fate.
Contents
List of Figures
List of Sidebars
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Power in Nature: From Mitochondria to Emotion and Deception
The Basis of Life's Power
Power and Bodies
Power and Behaviors
Proto-Human Powers
2. Power in the Pleistocene: On Spears, Fires, Furs, Words, and Flutes — And Why Men Are Such Power-Hogs
Hands and Stone
The Fire Ape
Skins
From Grunts to Sentences
Gender Power
The Power of Art
3. Power in the Holocene: The Rise of Social Inequality
Gerdening, Big Men, and Chiefs: Power from Food Production
Plow and Plunder: Kings and the First States
Herding Cattle, Flogging Slaves: Power from Domestication
Stories of Our Ancestors: Religion and Power
Tools for Wording: Communication Technologies
Numbers on Money
Pathologies of Power
4. Power in the Anthropocene: The Wonderful World of Fossil Fuels
It's All Energy
The Coal Train
Oil, Cars, Airplanes, and the New Middle Class
Oil-Age Wars and Weapons
Electrifying!
The Human Superorganism
5. Overpowered: The Fine Mess We've Gotten Ourselves Into
Climate Chaos and Its Remedies
Disappearance of Wild Nature
Resource Depletion
Soaring Economic Inequality
Pollution
Overpopulation and Overconsumption
Global Debt Bubble
Weapons of Mass Destruction
6. Optimum Power: Sustaining Our Power Over Time
Involuntary Power Limits: Death, Extinction, Collapse
Self-Limitation in Natural and Human-Engineered Systems
Taboos, Souls, and Enlightenment
Taxes, Regulations, Activism, and Rationing: Power Restraint in the Modern World
Games, Disarmament, and Degrowth
Denial, Optimism Bias, and Irrational Exuberance
7. The Future of Power: Learning to Live Happily Within Limits
All Against All
Trade-Offs Along the Path of Self-Restraint
The Fate of the Superorganism
Questioning Technology
Learning to Live with Less Energy and Stuff
Lessening Inequality
Population: Lowering It and Keeping It Steady
Fighting Power with Power
Long-Term Power Through Beauty, Spirituality, and Happiness
Notes
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers
