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The Big Here and the Long Now - Thomas Hylland Eriksen

The Big Here and the Long Now

From Global Uniformity to the New Diversities
Buch | Softcover
320 Seiten
2026
Pluto Press (Verlag)
978-0-7453-5222-0 (ISBN)
CHF 34,90 inkl. MwSt
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A spirited and engaging 'big picture' narrative of how we can reverse capitalism's relentless drive towards biocultural homogeneity
For thousands of years, humanity's story was one of diversification. Across centuries and continents our species proliferated new approaches to family and community life; to agriculture, economics, religion, artistic expression and self-understanding. Today, this process is in reverse. 



Culturally and ecologically, we are witnessing an almost universal drive towards homogeneity and the loss of diversity. The global forces of capitalism have created a world riddled with overlapping crises, with any alternatives pushed into the margins, narrowing the scope for action just when we need it most. And yet its logic is never totalising: contrary to Margaret Thatcher's famous mantra, there are many alternatives. 



The Big Here and the Long Now begins with the story of how our world of efficiency, standardisation and development optimism first came into being; and how promises of progress, growth and prosperity have, in recent years, acquired a nasty aftertaste. The book concludes with hope, and an exploration of creolisation and hybridity. With biocultural diversity already being revived by activists and indigenous communities, from Manhattan to Micronesia, there are plenty of green shoots. Now they must be cultivated and nurtured.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962 – 2024) was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and former President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). He was among the most highly cited anthropologists of his generation, and his classic and accessible textbook Small Places, Large Issues remains a cornerstone in anthropology courses. His later books, including Overheating, tackled the important issue of climate change within the discipline.

Introduction: The big here and the long now

Part I. A global history of standardisation

1. Narratives of loss

2. Everything was not better before

3. The world after 1492

4. The global bulldozers: State and market

5. Global capitalism and flexibility loss

Part II. Overheating in the 21st century

6. The world after 1991

7. The Homogenocene

8. The smartphone and the container ship

9. The botanical garden – and the zoological one

10. Concrete

11. Soil

12. Invasions

13. Language

14. Food

15. The sensory system

16. Modules in an appified world

17. The good homogenisation

Part III. Miracles of creolisation

18. David and Goliath

19. Cracks in the concrete

20. Biocultural reconciliation

21. Crossing boundaries

22. Unclean diversity

23. The miracle of creolisation

24. TAMA

Erscheint lt. Verlag 20.4.2026
Verlagsort London
Sprache englisch
Maße 140 x 216 mm
Themenwelt Naturwissenschaften Biologie Ökologie / Naturschutz
Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie
Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie
ISBN-10 0-7453-5222-7 / 0745352227
ISBN-13 978-0-7453-5222-0 / 9780745352220
Zustand Neuware
Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR)
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