Sean Bala reviewed The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh
Review of 'The Great Derangement' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
"The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable" by Amitav Ghosh explores unique aspects of the interplay between literature, history and politics with questions about climate change and the environment. The book does not cohere as a whole but the ideas are interesting and will make you think differently. If there is one central theme of the book, it is an attempt to explore the reasons for our inaction on climate change through our stories, history, and politics. Each part of the book looks at these areas from counter-intuitive directions. Under stories, Ghosh asks whether our literature cannot tackle climate change because we have focused too much on realism in our fiction. The changes we are undergoing are so immense that they are literally beyond our imaginations. Under history, Ghosh shows that pre-colonial Burma, India, and China each had elements of the industrial revolution and, unaided, could have also industrialized …
"The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable" by Amitav Ghosh explores unique aspects of the interplay between literature, history and politics with questions about climate change and the environment. The book does not cohere as a whole but the ideas are interesting and will make you think differently. If there is one central theme of the book, it is an attempt to explore the reasons for our inaction on climate change through our stories, history, and politics. Each part of the book looks at these areas from counter-intuitive directions. Under stories, Ghosh asks whether our literature cannot tackle climate change because we have focused too much on realism in our fiction. The changes we are undergoing are so immense that they are literally beyond our imaginations. Under history, Ghosh shows that pre-colonial Burma, India, and China each had elements of the industrial revolution and, unaided, could have also industrialized at the same time as Europe. This fact complicates the notion of developing and developed countries and "differentiated responsibilities" for climate change. The final chapter cleverly compares the texts of the Paris Climate Treaty (2015) and Pope Francis's encyclical "Laudato Si" to show that our politics lacks the poetry and philosophy to go directly against climate change. Instead, it buries the issue in rhetoric and mind-numbing language.