List Price: $27.00 Details

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Save: $4.00 (15%)
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Return this item for free
  • Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges
  • Learn more about free returns.
FREE delivery Thursday, March 2 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon
Or fastest delivery February 22 - 27

Also available as a Kindle eBook which will be auto-delivered on day of release
[{"displayPrice":"$23.00","priceAmount":23.00,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"23","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"00","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"ZxHV7FMaxzG5qVhcDlpjr6fPArnGo9FHS86231RWs%2FGojVdocPWIqW6kR7HF8svzX3E2fiLQR2xg6ovrbG1Rwx5JgZGCsz6ZoCs371aH%2F4b%2FXdKMG907XXRpk0ge9vp7qggsHbg77SYVmPpSfc9UuiFEGzPVJcrC5Eu8E8M%2B%2FwGAASUICvrb4Q1NRuztG%2BNb","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$10.65","priceAmount":10.65,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"10","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"65","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"KC09lMn9O9Pepqd%2Fl3m3AU0oex8GSGKJjfCp2JVzIpCXnQXk3T%2F3VcmM9KCMHeQQJJKBOOc089402Zl7D2GH9%2BQtCmfBwE%2Fr4IF3Avu6uTNsFOc6bvOFE1HmsqeaWtu0dOKqLLTn9L3e4YJYkvqY0ZzefwPntSeGfaadfJMQxfb%2BOCzP9uw%2FynuxqFHP4BM4","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]
$$23.00 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$23.00
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Ships from
Amazon
Sold by
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Gift options
Add at checkout
Ships from
Amazon
Sold by
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Gift options
Add at checkout
The Uninhabitable Earth: ... has been added to your Cart
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime
FREE delivery Friday, February 24 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon
Used: Very Good | Details
Sold by Bookmark Sales
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: Pages are clean with no markings. Ships direct from Amazon!
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Have one to sell?
Other Sellers on Amazon
Added
$29.98
& FREE Shipping
Sold by: Niki's Variety Items
Sold by: Niki's Variety Items
(5991 ratings)
100% positive over last 12 months
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Shipping rates and Return policy
Added
$31.92
& FREE Shipping. Details
Sold by: FindAnyBook
Sold by: FindAnyBook
(1617 ratings)
97% positive over last 12 months
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Shipping rates and Return policy
Added
$31.92
& FREE Shipping. Details
Sold by: Read & Refine
Sold by: Read & Refine
(973 ratings)
100% positive over last 12 months
In Stock.
Shipping rates and Return policy
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

Follow the Author

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming Hardcover – February 19, 2019

4.5 out of 5 stars 3,400 ratings

Price
New from Used from
Kindle
Hardcover, February 19, 2019
$23.00
$12.99 $2.52

Enhance your purchase


Check out reading-themed apparel and accessories in the new Amazon Books merch shop

Frequently bought together

  • The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
  • +
  • How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
  • +
  • Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Choose items to buy together.
Popular Highlights in this book

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE

“Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.” —
Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

“The book has potential to be this generation’s 
Silent Spring.” —The Washington Post

The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books

"Most of us know the gist, if not the details, of the climate change crisis. And yet it is almost impossible to sustain strong feelings about it. David Wallace-Wells has now provided the details, and with writing that is not only clear and forceful, but often imaginative and even funny, he has found a way to make the information deeply felt." 
—Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated

“A brilliant new book. . . . a remorseless, near-unbearable account of what we are doing to our planet."—
John Lanchester, The New York Times Book Review

"David Wallace-Wells argues that the impacts of climate change will be much graver than most people realize, and he's right. 
The Uninhabitable Earth is a timely and provocative work." —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction

"An excellent book. . . . Not since Bill McKibben’s
The End of Nature thirty years ago have we been told what climate change will mean in such vivid terms." —Fred Pearce, The Washington Post

"One of the very few books about our climate change emergency that doesn't sugarcoat the horror."
 —William T. Vollmann, author of No Immediate Danger

“Clearly and engagingly written, widely informed, with references supplied in extensive and detailed endnotes, this overview of the present status of the climate emergency and our response to it is completely captivating: it is our own story, happening here and now.”
—Lydia Davis, Times Literary Supplement

“Powerfully argued. . . . A masterly analysis of why—with a world of solutions—we choose doom.” —
Nature

"This gripping, terrifying, furiously readable book is possibly the most wide-ranging account yet written of the ways in which climate change will transform every aspect of our lives, ranging from where we live to what we eat and the stories we tell. Essential reading for our ever-more-unfamiliar and unpredictable world." 
—Amitav Ghosh, author of Flood of Fire

“Urgent and humane. . . . Wallace-Wells is an extremely adept storyteller. . . . A horrifying assessment of what we might expect as a result of climate change if we don’t change course.” —Susan Matthews, Slate

“If we don’t want our grandchildren to curse us, we had better read this book.” 
—Timothy Snyder, author of Black Earth

“Lively. . . . Vivid. . . . If you’ve snoozed through or turned away from the climate change news, this book will waken and update you. If you’re steeped in the unfolding climate drama, Wallace-Wells’s voice and perspective will be stimulating.” —David George Haskell, The Guardian

“Wallace-Wells has a gorgeous command of the English language, and knows how to lay down prose that moves the reader at such a clip that one feels like a Kentucky Derby–exhausted mare at the end of each chapter. . . . Wallace-Wells sets himself and his analysis of climate change apart from the predominant voices of leadership in the field.”
—Laurie Garrett, The Lancet

“Beautifully written. . . . As climate change encroaches, things will get worse. Much worse. And David Wallace-Wells spares no detail in explaining how.” —
Kate Aronoff, Bookforum

"Relentless, angry journalism of the highest order. Read it and, for the lack of any more useful response, weep." —
Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times

"A brilliant and unsparing analysis of a nightmare that is no longer a distant future but our chaotic, burning present. Unlike other writers who speak about human agency in the abstract, Wallace-Wells zeros in on the power structures and capitalist elites whose mindless greed is writing an obituary for our grandchildren." 
—Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear

"A lucid and thorough description of our unprecedented crisis, and of the mechanisms of denial with which we seek to avoid its fullest recognition.” 
—William Gibson, author of Neuromancer

"David Wallace-Wells has produced a willfully terrifying polemic that reads like a cross between Stephen King and Stephen Hawking. Written with verve and insight and an eerie gusto for its own horrors, it comes just when we need it; it could not be more urgent than it is at this moment. I hope everyone will read it and be afraid." —Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon

About the Author

David Wallace-Wells is a columnist and deputy editor at New York magazine. He has been a national fellow at the New America Foundation and was previously the deputy editor of The Paris Review. He lives in New York City.
Limited-Time Offer
3 Months FREE of Audible Premium Plus. Get this deal

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tim Duggan Books; 1st edition (February 19, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0525576703
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0525576709
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1370L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.8 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 3,400 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

David Wallace-Wells is a national fellow at the New America foundation and a columnist and deputy editor at New York magazine. He was previously the deputy editor of The Paris Review. He lives in New York City.

Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
3,400 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 9, 2019
Customer image
5.0 out of 5 stars Creating Hell (or not): The Choice Is Ours--Now
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 9, 2019
Uninhabitable Earth; Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells

Usually, I write a book review to share a sense of joy or insights or pleasure that I've gained from reading a book. Not so with this book. I'm writing this book review in an attempt to purge the angst that I suffered from reading it, to turn the sense of dread and potential for despair I often felt while reading it into something more positive, into courageous action. Can I succeed? I hope so, for my sake and for the sake of any reader.

Wallace-Wells undertakes two tasks in this book. First, he brings us up to date with the latest climate science and the most reliable prognostications about the effects of climate change. The works of thousands of scientists converge around a variety of hellscapes that would make Dante swoon. As Wallace-Wells points out, we've been conditioned to think that climate change is just rising sea levels or some warmer temperatures here and there. It's not nearly so simple. It's not "I don't live near the coast, so what's my worry," because the problem is manifold and ubiquitous. No one can escape. Yes, sea levels will rise. Temperatures will rise so that some areas to become nearly unhabitable, especially around the Middle East and India (and having lived in northern India, I have a sense of what extreme temperatures feel like). Droughts and floods will increase in frequency and severity. Wildfires, as Americans have seen within the past year in California and the Pacific Northwest, will increase in severity and frequency. Severe weather events, such as hurricanes and tornados, will proliferate and become stronger. Get ready for the designation of a Category 6 hurricane. Established diseases will spread (malaria, dengue fever, and zika will move north), and new pathological organisms will evolve in our hothouse atmosphere. Crops will fail and yields decline. Nature will survive, of course, but species and whole ecosystems will disappear. We'll see Nature altered in ways that we don't recognize and won't enjoy. Human beings will be forced to migrate to survive. And conflicts will proliferate and intensify, from domestic quarrels (and undoubtedly physical abuse) to wars and civil unrest. We seem intent on creating a perfectly Hobbesian world of the war of all against all.

Is Wallace-Wells just another alarmist? Is this just a book with cheap thrills like a 50's horror flick? I wish. Wallace-Wells went into this research and writing project as someone who was cognizant of climate change, but who didn't hold it front and center of his concerns until, as a journalist, he saw an increasing flood of scientific papers that revealed a much more frightening future than most of the media was reporting. What Wallace-Wells discovered disturbed him and frightened him. But he hasn't given up hope, and neither should we.

In fact, the second portion of the book, after establishing the likelihood of various varieties of hell that we humans are creating for ourselves--and we are creating it, and we are choosing it--Wallace-Wells turns to our responses and how individuals, societies, and nations may respond to the increasing pressures that we face.

We humans, like most of our fellow creatures here on Earth, have three instinctive responses to threats: fight, flight, or freeze (even faint). I couldn't help but think along these lines as I read about reactions (or the lack of response) to our increasingly certain knowledge. As a whole, we've chosen to faint, to swoon at the thought of what we've wrought and then distract ourselves from our plight. We play mind games with ourselves to distract ourselves from the challenge at hand, and 21st-century consumer capitalism is most willing to enable us to do this. The Republican Party in Congress tries to pretend that the science is wrong and the problem unreal, 'another liberal plot" they say. Some say its just "God's will" and take a fatalistic approach justified on some bit of Bible misreading. Others seek to flee through technological panaceas, some of which may prove useful, but none of which promise reliable remedy and none of which can be attempted without immense costs and tremendous uncertainty about unintended consequences. The super-rich investigate how to govern the bunkers they're building to try to escape the wrath of the masses who will seek both vengeance and access to the resources that the super-rich have squirreled away. (But the super-rich remain worried about how to keep their guardians from turning on them.)

The last option is to fight (climate change, not my fellow humans), and that's the option I'll take. We'll suffer significant--if not devastating--dislocations. We'll continue to see all sorts of changes, natural, social, economic, political, and cultural. But as Wallace-Wells makes clear, we have options and the potential to dramatically reduce the suffering that the future holds for all humans if we don't take sufficient steps to alleviate our plight. And I believe--or at least I possess a ray of hope--that we humans can respond in time (and time is of the essence). Thomas Friedman recently quoted an elementary but valuable insight from economic thinker Eric Beinhoffer: "there are only two ways to cure political tribalism: 'A common threat or a common project.'” Friedman uses this point to recommend that we need to undertake a common project to repair the foundations of the middle class. I suggest that repairing the foundations of the middle class must be subsumed under the project of dealing with climate change, which is a common threat and can become a common project. Indeed, starting now, we must re-imagine our political structures, our political economy, our entire culture. We have the potential to use the impending catastrophes to attempt to build a more just society. We either seek a just and sustainable world, or we can expect increasing international strife and civil anarchy. The range of possibilities for political, economic, and cultural change is vast, from outcomes that will prove (reasonably) attractive to appalling possibilities for anarchy or totalitarianism (and every nightmare in between).

In listening to a couple of interviews of author David Wallace-Wells (The Ezra Klein Show & The Joe Rogen Experience), I was relieved to learn that he has an infant daughter, born while he was researching this topic. This fact reinforces his fundamental commitment to strive for the best possible outcome of our climate challenge, and it lets readers know that his hopeful words (there are some) don't represent publisher mandated pablum for readers. Wallace-Wells has to believe that we can take effective action to reduce our suffering and that of those who will come after us.

One final comment: Again, from interviews, suggestions have been made that millennials will face this problem and must live with the consequences. Of course, this is true. But we baby-boomers have overseen an almost obscene increase in carbon in the atmosphere in the period since Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006). We bear the burden of responsibility for addressing our planetary illness. Alleviating the devastation of climate change must be a cross-generational project. We must begin the think in Burkean terms: society is a contract among generations past, present, and future. (If only there were more true conservatives!)

Please, read this book and ponder your response. What shall we choose?
Images in this review
Customer image
Customer image
129 people found this helpful
Report abuse
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 7, 2020
10 people found this helpful
Report abuse
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 25, 2022
3 people found this helpful
Report abuse

Top reviews from other countries

abraxis
1.0 out of 5 stars Such poor writing its close to unreadable.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 18, 2019
229 people found this helpful
Report abuse
Alex D
1.0 out of 5 stars Rambling, unstructured, not a diagram in sight
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 15, 2019
96 people found this helpful
Report abuse
Mac McAleer
5.0 out of 5 stars It is worse, much worse, than you think
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 4, 2019
81 people found this helpful
Report abuse
LBJ
1.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as expected...rather poorly written...avoid
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 16, 2019
82 people found this helpful
Report abuse
Iain Aitken
2.0 out of 5 stars A polemical book with an unrelenting lack of balance, common sense and perspective
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 7, 2019
55 people found this helpful
Report abuse