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Roy Scranton
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Learning to Die in the Anthropocene MP3 CD – MP3 Audio, September 20, 2016

by Roy Scranton (Author), Sean Runnette (Reader)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 520 ratings
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Coming home from the war in Iraq, US Army private Roy Scranton thought he'd left the world of strife behind. Then he watched as new calamities struck America, heralding a threat far more dangerous than ISIS or al-Qaeda: Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, megadrought - the shock and awe of global warming.

Our world is changing. Rising seas, spiking temperatures, and extreme weather imperil global infrastructure, crops, and water supplies. Conflict, famine, plagues, and riots menace from every quarter. From war-stricken Baghdad to the melting Arctic, human-caused climate change poses a danger not only to political and economic stability but to civilization itself...and to what it means to be human. Our greatest enemy, it turns out, is ourselves. The warmer, wetter, more chaotic world we now live in - the Anthropocene - demands a radical new vision of human life.

In this bracing response to climate change, Roy Scranton combines memoir, reportage, philosophy, and Zen wisdom to explore what it means to be human in a rapidly evolving world, taking listeners on a journey through street protests, the latest findings of earth scientists, a historic UN summit, millennia of geological history, and the persistent vitality of ancient literature. Expanding on his influential New York Times essay (the number-one most-emailed article the day it appeared, and selected for Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014), Scranton responds to the existential problem of global warming by arguing that in order to survive, we must come to terms with our mortality.

Plato argued that to philosophize is to learn to die. If that's true, says Scranton, then we have entered humanity's most philosophical age - for this is precisely the problem of the Anthropocene. The trouble now is that we must learn to die not as individuals but as a civilization.

Roy Scranton has published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Boston Review, and Theory and Event and has been interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air, among other media.

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  1. Part of series
    City Lights Open Media
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio
  4. Publication date
    September 20, 2016
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 0.63 x 5.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1531889271
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1531889272
  8. See all details
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Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roy Scranton is an American writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. His essays, journalism, short fiction, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Nation, Dissent, LIT, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Boston Review.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio; Unabridged edition (September 20, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1531889271
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1531889272
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 0.63 x 5.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 520 ratings

About the author

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Roy Scranton

Roy Scranton

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Roy Scranton is the author of TOTAL MOBILIZATION: WORLD WAR II AND AMERICAN LITERATURE (University of Chicago Press, 2019), I HEART OKLAHOMA! (Soho Press, 2019), WE'RE DOOMED. NOW WHAT? (Soho Press, 2018), WAR PORN (Soho Press, 2016), and LEARNING TO DIE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE (City Lights, 2015). He earned an MA from the New School for Social Research and a PhD in English from Princeton, and has been awarded a Whiting Humanities Fellowship and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. His work has appeared widely, including in the BEST SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING 2014, and has been called "fierce and provocative" (Elizabeth Kolbert), "elegant, erudite, heartfelt & wise"

(Amitav Ghosh), "forceful and unsettling" (Michiko Kakutani), and "brilliant" (Jeff VanderMeer). [photo credit Ola Kjelbye]

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
520 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book's content insightful, comforting, and an introduction to the problems of the Anthropocene for people. They also describe the writing quality as well-written and thoughtful.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

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ContentWriting qualityWriting style
37 customers mention "Content"28 positive9 negative

Customers find the book's content insightful, convincing, honest, and agile. They also describe it as a comforting read and an important argument for addressing climate change.

"...Scathing and blunt, while offering the challenge of hope, it mesmerizes in the scope of the author’s review." Read more

"...The resonance with Buddhism is noticeable...." Read more

"...If you're into Scranton's question, this book offers some novel thoughts and some new/compelling ways of summarizing old thoughts/history, but don't..." Read more

"...Definitely a unique thinker and refreshing to read."Carbon based capitalism""Aggressive human monoculture""..." Read more

8 customers mention "Writing quality"6 positive2 negative

Customers find the writing quality of the book well written and thoughtful. They also appreciate the well thought out introduction to the deeper connections.

"...It is easy to read and concisely written, but some of the philosophy is derivative and unnecessary for the point at hand, although I agree with much..." Read more

"...Author is witty. And well worth a reread now that I have completed my trio of CO2 global doom and gloom books...." Read more

"Did not learn anything. Many of the paragraphs jiberish. He tried to make a point by telling of myths like Gilgamesh and failed totally...." Read more

"...depth look at science, politics, or economics but rather a well thought out introduction to the deeper connections between them." Read more

3 customers mention "Writing style"0 positive3 negative

Customers find the writing style pretentious and underwritten. They also say the arrogance is stunning.

"...On the other hand, the arrogance is stunning. He is all about dying, the ancient poems of the near east and so forth...." Read more

"Lord this looks boring! I am so glad I didn't major in Anthropology." Read more

"This book struck me as pretentious and underwritten, and I couldn't get beyond the first 20 pages...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Andy Anderson
5.0 out of 5 stars Philosphy and reality collide
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2024
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Deeply thoughtful insights that compel further study. Scathing and blunt, while offering the challenge of hope, it mesmerizes in the scope of the author’s review.
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David
4.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the arrogance and read
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2017
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A short, good, and arrogant. First this is not a book about climate change. Look elsewhere for that. This book assumes that we as a carbon burning species are common to our collective end as such. What seems to interest the author is our collective nature. He is, after all, a philosopher. He has some great points: the shear speed of communications, the free floating collectivity of our news, the dangers of mass panic or other disruptive events. I found his discussion of hive (as in honeybee hives) behavior to be fascinating. Living as we now do in the Trump era, I suspect a lot of folks could find a lot to think about in this book. On the other hand, the arrogance is stunning. He is all about dying, the ancient poems of the near east and so forth. The resonance with Buddhism is noticeable. However, his idea that philosophy will somehow show us how to interrupt the vast hive like stream we live in is nothing short of amazing, and I speak here as someone who loves philosophy and the humanities. We need to learn to die? And no, not one single mention of a rather large group of people who have a whole religion (Christianity) which deals with this in both historical and, yes, philosophical ways. There is no such thing as Heaven, Hell, Judgement. You do not have to be a Christian fundamentalist (and I am not) to say that such an assertion is rather amazing. How does he know? How does anyone know? I would vote against Hell myself, but it does not matter. Humility before the unknown is not this authors strong suit, and in my view it limits his argument and his appeal to a wider group. A shame, but still worth the read.
6 people found this helpful
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Thomas D. Schueneman
5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and Provocative
Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2023
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While serving in Iraq, Scranton looked out "past the wire" and saw a black hole. He learned that to survive in his situation, he had to learn how to die—to let go and allow his fate to unfold. He turns that thinking into our current time and circumstance. A thoughtful read.
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Prometheus
3.0 out of 5 stars Good book. Easy to read and short, lots of relevant facts.
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2016
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Unless I missed it, and I may have, he failed to put the number one GOP and other climate denier's argument to rest, which is yes, global warming is happening but man is not causing it, and as the author admits in great detail the earth has gone through many of these severe climate changes before where Man couldn't have been the cause. In fact, I think this book reenforces the climate denier's BS argument. The vast majority of climate deniers, don't deny the warming effect they deny the causal link to Man. Again, I'm not sure the author killed this BS with this book.

It is easy to read and concisely written, but some of the philosophy is derivative and unnecessary for the point at hand, although I agree with much of the philosophy.
3 people found this helpful
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EXO Books
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is different and special because of its tone most of all.
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2016
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This book is different and special because of its tone most of all. Anyone who has struggled with an "awakening," the realization that this world is nowhere close to what you are told it is (from birth, and daily), knows that this is a great ordeal. Wrapping your head around the problems that Scranton adroitly tackles is generally a very depressing thing--it's almost like going through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of dying, replete with denial, anger, bargaining, and depression before finally arriving at acceptance, if one ever does. But this is where this work excels.

Scranton seems to be more than capable of picking up the mantle of the younger generation's John Raulston Saul: a moralist interested in providing an unvarnished, big picture understanding of WHY and HOW we find ourselves in such a dark place. Yet it's the hopeful tone throughout which makes this exceptional. There are plenty of books out there which will explain to you the myriad reasons why the world is going to s***. You can see it in our fantasies, too--from the general dystopia bent in popular fiction to the kill-everyone-and-everything zombie fetish that won't seem to go away. But Roy is very clear: s*** sucks, but we are not hopeless. The battle is the same battle its always been; the forces of consolidated greed, violence, and everything dark against the light of wisdom, hope, and love. For as hard as it seems and as dark as it gets, we, the people of the light, can't give up. Roy Scranton knows that and so should you.
35 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Frequent Buyer
5.0 out of 5 stars A good Bus Book
Reviewed in Canada on April 17, 2023
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Perfect kittle Book for commuter Bus trips
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DS322
5.0 out of 5 stars A Lightbulb Moment of Thinking
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 27, 2016
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A short but sweet discussion about a period of history where human activity affecting the planets equilibrium can be objectively measured. The language used is very welcoming and discussion is organised to make it approachable for those that may not be familiar with the topic.
2 people found this helpful
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David Cooke
5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing!
Reviewed in Australia on November 29, 2016
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Today was a special day in my life because I found and read this book. It is a precious gift of wisdom that I will read and share many times over.
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Shawn Ladd
4.0 out of 5 stars Left me wanting more...
Reviewed in Canada on December 1, 2022
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Lucid and lyrical. Magisterial and wry. I can't come up with a good description. Maybe if a classical epic or Norse saga were a TED talk?
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Mark Hayward
4.0 out of 5 stars Facing up to our extinction
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 3, 2017
Verified Purchase
We all face extinction, individually and as as species. There are no easy answers in this short book. The author faced up to his own mortality serving in Iraq, when gazing into the rear-view mirror of his humvee and seeing a blank space. I have marked some sections to return to and ponder.
One person found this helpful
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