Audio only
Length6h 7m
About this audiobook
Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability—at the level of literature, history, and politics—to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.
The extreme nature of today’s climate events, Ghosh asserts, make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining. This is particularly true of serious literary fiction: hundred-year storms and freakish tornadoes simply feel too improbable for the novel; they are automatically consigned to other genres. In the writing of history, too, the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications; Ghosh shows that the history of the carbon economy is a tangled global story with many contradictory and counterintuitive elements.
Ghosh ends by suggesting that politics, much like literature, has become a matter of personal moral reckoning rather than an arena of collective action. But to limit fiction and politics to individual moral adventure comes at a great cost. The climate crisis asks us to imagine other forms of human existence—a task to which fiction, Ghosh argues, is the best suited of all cultural forms. His book serves as a great writer’s summons to confront the most urgent task of our time.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.1 (8.3K)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, StoryGraph, LibraryThing
GenreScience and Nature, Politics and Government
Length6 hrs 7 mins
Narrated byShridhar Solanki
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateDec 14, 2019
LanguageEnglish
More from Amitav Ghosh
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Story of BirdsSteve Brusatte11h 49m4.6 (401)$29 · $0.00
LiftoffEric Berger9h 4m4.6 (9.5K)$29 · $0.00
Black Earth WisdomLeah Penniman11h 54m4.6 (577)$8 · $0.00
Total Cat MojoJackson Galaxy10h 13m4.5 (8.4K)$23 · $0.00
My Life Among the UnderdogsTia Torres5h 51m4.5 (4K)$24 · $0.00
What It Takes to Save a LifeKwane Stewart6h4.6 (556)$24 · $0.00
Pastoral SongJames Rebanks8h 35m4.5 (12K)$26 · $0.00
How Stella Learned to TalkChristina Hunger7h4.5 (10.9K)$24 · $0.00
Craig & FredCraig Grossi8h 6m4.5 (9.6K)$26 · $0.00
Celebrating BirdsNatalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez6h 47m4.6 (330)$24 · $0.00
Saving JemimaJulie Zickefoose4h 59m4.5 (749)$20 · $0.00
Will's Red CoatTom Ryan8h 23m4.5 (2.3K)$26 · $0.00
Of Time and TurtlesSy Montgomery10h 34m4.5 (5K)$29 · $0.00
Zen and the Art of Saving the PlanetThich Nhat Hanh9h 20m4.5 (3.9K)$29 · $0.00
BLACK BEAUTY (With Original Illustrations)Anna Sewell7h 31m4.5 (1.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
Bottle of LiesKatherine Eban14h 25m4.4 (12K)$33 · $0.00
IngrainedCallum Robinson8h 10m4.5 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
The Lion Tracker's Guide To LifeBoyd Varty3h 1m4.4 (4.8K)$18 · $0.00
Born for LoveBruce D. Perry, Maia Szalavitz11h 42m4.4 (4K)$29 · $0.00
Black AF HistoryMichael Harriot15h 43m4.7 (14.6K)$33 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m4.7 (8.9K)$46 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m4.6 (10.8K)$24 · $0.00
KrantikariSanjeev Sanyal11h 44m4.6 (1.3K)$16 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
RiggedMollie Hemingway12h 48m4.6 (4.2K)$23 · $0.00
SledgehammerDavid Friedman8h 21m4.7 (589)$26 · $0.00
Citizenship in a Republic (Annotated)Theodore Roosevelt2h 44m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
UnthinkableJamie Raskin15h 8m4.5 (9.3K)$8 · $0.00
My Fourth Time, We DrownedSally Hayden13h 59m4.6 (2.9K)$23 · $0.00
A Revolution of Common SenseScott Jennings9h 29m4.6 (528)$29 · $0.00
Statement From the Dock at the Rivonia TrialNelson Mandela2h 18m4.6 (1.3K)$1 · $0.00
Lessons from the EdgeMarie Yovanovitch17h 11m4.5 (5.9K)$40 · $0.00
To Rescue the American SpiritBret Baier10h 12m4.5 (2.7K)$8 · $0.00
StonewalledSharyl Attkisson15h 19m4.5 (4.3K)$33 · $0.00
You may also like
Seeing Like a StateJames C. Scott16h 5m4.3 (10.6K)$25
Consequences of CapitalismNoam Chomsky, Marv Waterstone14h 11m4.5 (2.4K)$23 · $0.00
Return of the PrimitiveAyn Rand, Peter Schwartz13h 10m4.4 (1.1K)$23
A Book Forged in HellSteven Nadler9h 17m4.2 (1.4K)$20
The Body ElectricRobert Becker, Gary Selden15h 27m4.4 (2.6K)$29 · $0.00
A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind Jean-Jacques Rousseau2h 51m4.0 (21.8K)Free
The Machine StopsE. M. Forster1h 19m4.2 (26.1K)$1 · $0.00
Human NatureKate Marvel8h 4m4.3 (576)$26 · $0.00
Sacred CowDiana Rodgers RD, Robb Wolf8h 28m4.4 (4.3K)$20
The Social ContractJean-Jacques Rousseau10h 49m3.9 (68.7K)$9 · $0.00
Lord of the World (Annotated)Robert Hugh Benson12h 24m4.2 (1.4K)$1.99 · $0.00
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Annotated)Jean-Jacques Rousseau4h 36m4.2 (40.4K)$2 · $0.00
The Indolence of the Filipino José Rizal1h 24m4.3 (544)Free
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024Bill McKibben, Jaime Green14h 14m4.2 (301)$33 · $0.00
Eat Like the AnimalsProfessor David Raubenheimer, Professor Stephen J. Simpson7h 36m4.3 (1.2K)$26 · $0.00
The Predator CultureFred Harrison6h 42m$6 · $0.00
THOMAS MORE Premium Edition (Annotated)Thomas More40h 18m$2 · $0.00
THE SLEEPER AWAKES & THE TIME MACHINE (Dystopian Classics) (Annotated)H. G. Wells13h 37m$2 · $0.00
Twilight of American SanityAllen Frances12h 38m3.8 (637)$33 · $0.00
Lights Of SilenceLuz De Miel6h 48m$6 · $0.00