DISCIPLINING THE ANTHROPOCENE

Ian Hesketh

History and Theory 61, no. 3 (2022)

Review of The Anthropocene: A Multidisciplinary Approach. By Julia Adeney Thomas, Mark Williams, and Jan Zalasiewicz. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020. Pp. xiii, 233.

In this review essay, I examine Julia Adeney Thomas, Mark Williams, and Jan Zalasiewicz's The Anthropocene: A Multidisciplinary Approach. As indicated by the book's subtitle, the authors stress the necessity of approaching the Anthropocene from a multidisciplinary perspective as opposed to an interdisciplinary one. I consider how the authors do this by analyzing the different disciplinary approaches they adopt from fields ranging from geology and Earth system science to anthropology and history. What will become clear is that, rather than seeking to synthesize the relevant knowledge that is produced by these disciplines, the authors envision the Anthropocene as an analytical lens through which multiple forms of knowledge can be produced. Given the disparate timescales and complex phenomena that are implied by the Anthropocene, this multidisciplinary approach avoids many of the epistemic problems that have beset certain attempts to situate the Anthropocene within a grand synthetic framework that is governed by a singular theory and linear historical narrative. In addition to showing that the Anthropocene must be viewed from a range of different disciplinary perspectives in order to be understood, the book illustrates how it is possible to bring into conversation diverse forms of knowledge from the sciences and the humanities without undermining the disciplinary differences and methods that produced those forms of knowledge in the first place.