Exploring parallels in early Chinese history, this study attempts to show how modern rhetoric concerning the ‘Anthropocene' serves to reify existing social strategies and power structures, preventing us from formulating creative responses to existential ecological challenges. It also argues that a more holistic, early Chinese conception of human beings and nature world might be a valuable resource for helping us to rethink our relationship to both our planet and our own history. This is an important and timely book.

Edward Slingerland, Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia

Environmental Narratives in the Huainanzi and the Anthropocene is a thought-provoking work of intellectual history and comparative thought. Hamm shows that disputants in the Anthropocene debates are, in fact, locked into a conservative mind-set that neuters the erstwhile radical implications of the geoscience. Ancient Chinese thought allows him to draw contemporary lessons for how to unlock the present debate about Earth’s future.

Noel Castree, University of Manchester (England) and University of Technology Sydney (Australia)

The overall conception of Environmental Narratives in the Huainanzi and the Anthropocene—using a close reading of the Huainanzi to criticize the periodization of the Anthropocene—is wonderful! This unexpected pairing yields significant insights. By scrutinizing the Anthropocene through the prism of a Chinese classic that dates back over two millennia, the study shows how periodization itself can preserve existing power structures, all while seeming to advocate for transformative change. Scholars and activists who have promoted the Anthropocene as a way of focusing the climate crisis may want to reconsider in the face of Hamm's thought-provoking challenge.

Jason Ananda Josephson Storm, Williams College