Review by Choice Review
Neyrat (literature, Univ. of Wisconsin--Madison) makes an ambitious, imaginative, and provocative case against the rampant trend in the West towards techno-optimism, and a brief for the only political ecology that might reorient humanity in time to save the planet, an ecology that must "deal with the obscure foundation of nature, the black sun of antiproduction, and the unconstructable base that makes up the trajectory (trajet) of the Earth." This quote bears singling out because it not only states the book's thesis, it gives readers a glimpse of some of the challenges of working through the book, especially if one is analytically trained. Still, grappling with the book's conceptual terminology and framework is worth the effort. Divided into three parts, the text first offers a history of the intertwining of the development of technology that both caused and reflects the Anthropocene. Neyrat then makes a case for Bruno Latour's constructionist political ecology and, finally, the full-bore case for what Neyrat calls the "ecology of separation" (reflecting the book's title). If the reader find his first part plausible and well argued, as this reviewer did, that's more than half the battle. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates and above. --Katheryn Hill Doran, Hamilton College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
