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Overview
Weaving together findings from a wide range of disciplines, Power traces how four key elements developed to give humans extraordinary power: tool making ability, language, social complexity, and the ability to harness energy sources ― most significantly, fossil fuels. It asks whether we have, at this point, overpowered natural and social systems, and if we have, what we can do about it.
Has Homo sapiens — one species among millions — become powerful enough to threaten a mass extinction and disrupt the Earth's climate? Why have we developed so many ways of oppressing one another? Can we change our relationship with power to avert ecological catastrophe, reduce social inequality, and stave off collapse?
These questions — and their answers — will determine our fate.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780865719675 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New Society Publishers |
| Publication date: | 09/14/2021 |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Sales rank: | 1,131,009 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
List of FiguresList of Sidebars
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Power in Nature: From Mitochondria to Emotion and Deception
The Basis of Life's Power
Power and Bodies
Power and Behaviors
Proto-Human Powers
2. Power in the Pleistocene: On Spears, Fires, Furs, Words, and Flutes — And Why Men Are Such Power-Hogs
Hands and Stone
The Fire Ape
Skins
From Grunts to Sentences
Gender Power
The Power of Art
3. Power in the Holocene: The Rise of Social Inequality
Gerdening, Big Men, and Chiefs: Power from Food Production
Plow and Plunder: Kings and the First States
Herding Cattle, Flogging Slaves: Power from Domestication
Stories of Our Ancestors: Religion and Power
Tools for Wording: Communication Technologies
Numbers on Money
Pathologies of Power
4. Power in the Anthropocene: The Wonderful World of Fossil Fuels
It's All Energy
The Coal Train
Oil, Cars, Airplanes, and the New Middle Class
Oil-Age Wars and Weapons
Electrifying!
The Human Superorganism
5. Overpowered: The Fine Mess We've Gotten Ourselves Into
Climate Chaos and Its Remedies
Disappearance of Wild Nature
Resource Depletion
Soaring Economic Inequality
Pollution
Overpopulation and Overconsumption
Global Debt Bubble
Weapons of Mass Destruction
6. Optimum Power: Sustaining Our Power Over Time
Involuntary Power Limits: Death, Extinction, Collapse
Self-Limitation in Natural and Human-Engineered Systems
Taboos, Souls, and Enlightenment
Taxes, Regulations, Activism, and Rationing: Power Restraint in the Modern World
Games, Disarmament, and Degrowth
Denial, Optimism Bias, and Irrational Exuberance
7. The Future of Power: Learning to Live Happily Within Limits
All Against All
Trade-Offs Along the Path of Self-Restraint
The Fate of the Superorganism
Questioning Technology
Learning to Live with Less Energy and Stuff
Lessening Inequality
Population: Lowering It and Keeping It Steady
Fighting Power with Power
Long-Term Power Through Beauty, Spirituality, and Happiness
Notes
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers
What People are Saying About This
"Power is a must read and a call to action for those seeking a sustainable, balanced, human future in harmony with the Earth. No guarantees, of course, but harnessing the power of sentient action certainly beats the alternative; of continuing our blind stumble only soon to be swept aside, as have many creatures before us."
— Peter C. Whybrow, author, The Well-Tuned Brain
"Heinberg goes to the very heart of the issue. Using his immense knowledge of biology, science, history, psychology, and the politics of energy, he shows that the environmental and social crises we face today have in their origin the insatiable human pursuit, and often abuse, of power, in all its forms. In showing us the path forward, Heinberg guides us to achieve power-limiting behavior so that we cannot just survive but thrive on a healthy planet and in healthy balance with one another."
— Maude Barlow, author, activist, and co-founder, The Blue Planet Project
"Power is sweeping in scope and a powerful presentation. Richard Heinberg is willing to face the harsh reality of multiple, cascading social and ecological crises without flinching, and he has written a comprehensive book offering readers a framework for moving forward that isn't based on wishful thinking. Drawing on his decades of activism and research, Heinberg explains why power and energy are central concepts for understanding the human predicament and shaping our future. Equal parts science and philosophy, history and contemporary analysis, Power is more engaging than a scholarly tome and more thoughtful than journalism. Heinberg's book is a model of public scholarship about life-or-death challenges to human societies."
—Robert Jensen, author, The Restless and Relentless Mind of Wes Jackson
"Richard Heinberg's panoramic review of known forms of power is both sobering and inspiring. Given our species' habitual methods for getting its way, be these methods physical, mental, or social, the outlook for our future is bleak indeed. Yet, Heinberg allows for the slim but real possibility of exercising restraint. If we are so persuaded, by wisdom or love for beauty, the future even now remains open. Indeed, such restraint returns us to ancient, almost forgotten appetites and capacities."
— Joanna Macy, author, World As Lover, World As Self
"Power serves as a Rosetta Stone to decipher how our species went from one of many to apex predator in a very short time. A necessary book to fully understand the imperative that our species returns to "right relation" in this critical time."
— Peter Buffett, composer and philanthropist
"For three decades, Richard Heinberg has been foretelling a day when humanity will be compelled to make a fateful choice: either turn away from our path of headlong growth or follow that path into a dark, dystopian future. Now, in 2021, that day has come. As with previous reversals of growth in societies throughout history, Heinberg concludes, humanity's ability to successfully navigate the coming worldwide decline will depend on how we handle power. We must, he says, finally reject vertical social power — the ability to get others to do something — and embrace our collective horizontal power — the ability of a group to self-organize to accomplish something. Power is Heinberg's masterwork and it could not be more timely, arriving just as our window for action threatens to slam shut. Ignore this book at your peril."
— Stan Cox, author, The Green New Deal and Beyond
"Heinberg's Power is a searing, unflinching revelation of what has driven us to our current existential crisis: humanity's quest for power. Impeccably researched and masterfully written, this book explains how and why humanity is driving itself off the cliff. If there is any hope for us to continue, Heinberg shows why it must come from efforts to limit our own power."
— Dahr Jamail, author, The End of Ice
"Power is Richard Heinberg at his synthesizing best. In this sweeping volume, he deftly links raw energy — essential for anything to happen in the physical world — to the exercise of political power in the cultural domain. If the productive use of energy is the ultimate key to evolutionary success, then humanity has no equal on Earth. But energy is also the source of society's addiction to economic growth, and the international power politics that are destroying the planet. In Power, Richard Heinberg asks whether we can avoid catastrophe. Will competing nations' primal lust for power give way to high intelligence, mutual trust, and unreserved cooperation in the quest to salvage civilization? Not a trivial question, as only success will grant humanity the chance to scramble yet another rung up the evolutionary ladder."
— William E. Rees, Phd, FRSC, Professor Emeritus, UBC/SCARP, Faculty of Applied Science, co-author, Our Ecological Footprint
"Power reminds us that Richard Heinberg is one of the most important public intellectuals in the conversation about society's future. Eminently readable and engaging, Power is breathtaking in its scope and insight. Heinberg persuasively argues that we have reached evolutionary limits to concentrated social power and that empathy and beauty are key to averting ecological and social catastrophe."
— Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies, author, The Wealth Hoarders
"I turn to Richard Heinberg whenever I need to understand something about energy; he's the "go-to" source. And now this! Power, with seamless fluency in paleo-history, economics, psychology, and politics, is the "must-read" for anyone wondering how we can make it through the 21st century. This book is more than informative. It is enlightening. It is essential. It is powerful!"
— Suzanne Moser, climate researcher and consultant
"A sobering and timely book just as many governments appear to acknowledge — after decades of inaction — the dangers of climate change."
— EEnergy Informer
"It may be a moral idea that hard work pays off but if we need proof that it counts, this latest from Richard Heinberg carries all the evidence we need. His encyclopedic treatment of power is brilliant. It is sure to pop up in courses and living rooms like toast."
— Wes Jackson, founder, The Land Institute