The Exhausted of the Earth - by Ajay Singh Chaudhary (Paperback)

About the Book

Marrying the scientific and political sides of the climate crisis issue, this is a hopeful call to arms about how we can overcome climate change. This world is exhausted - capitalism extracts almost everything it can from the oceans, rivers, land and skies but also from so many of us, our lives, our worlds, even our minds.

Book Synopsis

Marrying the scientific and political sides of the climate crisis issue, this is a hopeful call to arms about how we can overcome climate change.

Climate change is not only about the exhaustion of the planet, it's about the exhaustion of so many of us, our lives, our worlds, even our minds. So, what is to be done?

To answer this question, Ajay Singh Chaudhary brings together both the science and the politics of climate change. He shows how a new politics particular to the climate catastrophe demands a bitter struggle between those attached to the power, wealth, and security of "business-as-usual" and all of us, those exhausted, in every sense of the word, by the status quo.

Replacing Promethean, romantic, and apocalyptic fairytales with a new story for every exhausted inhabitant of this exhausted world, The Exhausted of the Earth outlines the politics and the power needed to alter the course of our burning world far beyond, far better than, mere survival.

Review Quotes

"This thoughtful and wide-ranging book is for those who wish to understand our predicament clearly, but especially for those looking for a glimmer of hope in our current darkness."- Raymond Geuss, author of Philosophy and Real Politics

"Walking us through the flimsy defences of green capitalism, slicing through the nonsense with rapier analysis, Chaudhary explains why any workable climate future will need to be grounded in decolonization. The argument is careful, logical, and is destined to be a classic, a touchstone in global climate struggles to come." - Raj Patel, New York Times Bestselling author of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things

"Ajay Singh Chaudhary has achieved the impossible: bringing together scientific, political, cultural and psychological thought to create the foundations of a new political 'climate realism, ' blending global decolonisation and domestic emancipation. The Exhausted of the Earth opens new horizons for urgent and immediate climate action. A must-read for our times." - Julia Steinberger, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, University of Lausanne

"Have you felt exhausted lately? In this wonderfully rich inquiry into late climate politics, Ajay Singh Chaudhary zooms in on exhaustion as the predicament of a world too long subjected to the 'extractive circuit' of capital: the constant sapping of energies, returning to the planet as excess heat. The wretched of the Earth are today the exhausted -- and if there is any way to fight back, it is, as Chaudhary so convincingly argues, with southern resources, assembled by everyone from Frantz Fanon to Imam Mahdi. Bristling with ideas on every page, this book is the energy drink you need." - Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline

"Written in a feisty and urgent style, The Exhausted of the Earth does the important work of not only showing that climate disruption and the Anthropocene are political, but also that they change what politics means. It shifts our attention in many, much needed ways."- McKenzie Wark, author of Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene

About the Author

Ajay Singh Chaudhary is the executive director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and a core faculty member specializing in social and political theory. He has written for The Guardian, The Nation, The Baffler, n+1, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.