One Planet, Many Worlds - (The Mandel Lectures in the Humanities at Brandeis University) by Dipesh Chakrabarty (Paperback)

About the Book

"The book opens with a discussion of the pandemic, then investigates the modern origins of the separation between "natural" and "human" histories, and what may be at stake in that separation. Does having different worlds make it difficult for humans to deal with a planet that is one?"--

Book Synopsis

A historian offers a unique look at the pandemic, climate change, and the human versus nonhuman.

Climate change represents a deep conundrum for humans. It is difficult for humans to give up the unequal and yet accelerating pursuit of a good life based on an insatiable appetite for energy sourced mainly from fossil fuel. But the same pursuit, scientists insist, damages the geobiological system that supports the existence of interrelated forms of life, including ours, on this planet. The planet, seen thus, is one. The global sway of financial and extractive capital connects humans technologically, but they remain divided along multiple axes of inequality. Their worlds are many and their politics still global rather than planetary. In the narrative presented here, Chakrabarty continues to explore the temporal and intellectual fault lines that mark the collapse of the global and the planetary in human history.

Review Quotes

"One Planet, Many Worlds is written in a beguilingly plain style; yet for our understanding of history and historiography, its argument is rich, challenging, and, in the true sense of the word, radical. For the study of history, and for the social sciences, it's not an exaggeration to describe his insights as revolutionary." -- "Journal of Modern History"

"One Planet, Many Worlds reads like an overheard meta-historical conversation between a master historian and his major intellectual influences. Clearly written and muscular with insight, this text will fascinate historians, anthropologists, and STSers alike."-- "Isis"

"Of all the books I've discussed here in 2023, One Planet, Many Worlds is the one that I expect to reread in the new year."-- "Inside Higher Ed"

"While this is only one book, there are many disciplines with which it engages, and it is Chakrabarty's thoughtful and gifted writing style that staves off any potential disciplinary disorientation. This book is a carefully curated and detailed philosophical tour through some of the most important issues of our time, and Chakrabarty does not rush: his attention is purposeful and revealing. I recommend this book to any readers who are ready for, and interested in, the kind of contemplative and complex political engagement that is needed to hold the tension of the global and the planetary."-- "Environmental Philosophy"

"One Planet, Many Worlds displays the same critical ingenuity, analytical subtlety, polymathic erudition, and gravitas that one has come to expect from Chakrabarty. Those who engage its arguments attentively, even in dissent, will come away energized by the encounter with a strenuous and self-exacting thinker capable of ranging back and forth across a vertiginous range of disciplines from geology to phenomenology."--Lawrence Buell, Harvard University, author of Writing for an Endangered World

About the Author

Dipesh Chakrabarty is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, a faculty fellow of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, an associate of the Department of English, and by courtesy, a faculty member in the Law School. He is a founding member of the editorial collective of Subaltern Studies, consulting editor of Critical Inquiry, founding editor of Postcolonial Studies, and has served on the editorial boards of the American Historical Review and Public Culture. His many books include The Crises of Civilization, The Climate of History in a Planetary Age, and Provincializing Europe.