Subjugate the Earth

by Philipp Blom

ISBN: 9781509561322

Published: 2024-11-22

Subjugate the Earth traces the biography of a strange idea: the idea that human beings can subdue nature and rule over it, that humans are outside and above nature. Born in Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilisation, the idea of subjugating the Earth was included in the Bible, reached Europe through Christianity and spread to the entire world through colonialism. The Enlightenment gave a scientific appearance to the ambition of controlling nature but did not change the ambition itself. But every birth presages a death. Only with the climate crisis has it become apparent that the subjugation of nature must be a self-defeating ambition, because it alters and deregulates natural systems which humans depend on for their survival, precisely because they are part of nature. Subjugating the Earth is an idea that is dying around us. The polycrisis threatening to engulf humanity is inextricably linked to how humans see themselves and their relationship with nature. Based on developments in the...