The Age of Capitalism, Consumer Culture, and the Collapse of Nature in the Anthropocene argues that the stability of post-industrial, postmodern society is threatened by the convergence of three distinct, yet interrelated, crises: environmental degradation, capitalist economic development, and the primacy of consumption and self-absorption as the basis for economic development at the expense of community and social relationships. Jack Thornburg contrasts advanced modern society with indigenous cultures in terms of nature and conceptions of the communal self. The complex nature of capitalist-oriented society has influenced how individuals conceptualize themselves. The outcome, the author contends, is a competitive society in which individuals are alienated living in uncertain times. One consequence of these crises (all of which derive from the Enlightenment and the concomitant appearance and evolution of capitalism) has been the destruction of a worldview balancing and connecting well-being with prosperity of the natural world. Money and materialism cannot buy happiness as capitalist narrative asserts. Thornburg claims that the happiness sought by individuals seeking meaning through consumption can only be realized by reintegrating nature with the human spirit.
Jack Thornburg is professor emeritus and received his PhD in development studies and anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Acknowledgments Introduction: A World in Change Chapter 1: Standing on the Faultline of a World in Crisis: Climate Change, Consumer Capitalism and Post-Modern Culture Chapter 2: Nature as Projection and Construction: The Meaning of Nature in the Mindscape of Culture Chapter 3: The Great Transformation of Anima Mundi as Environment: The Political-Economic Divide Between Culture and Nature Chapter 4: The dismantling of the world in the Search for Paradise: Environmental Degradation in the Age of Science, Technology and Human Desire Chapter 5: The Anthropocene's Handmaiden: Capitalism's Impact on Remaking the World Chapter 6: Eating Through the Environment: A Question of Consumer Culture Chapter 7: I Am What I Own-Or so I think: Possessions and the Presentation of Me Chapter 8: Searching for the Future Meaning of Humanity in the Age of Uncertainty Bibliography About the Author
Thornburg's synthesis challenges our capacity to recognize capitalism's rapacious resource exploitation, society's relentless consumerism, and human alienation from nature as keys to the environmental crisis that threatens our global future. -- Norberto Valdez, Colorado State University
