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The Vanishing Earth
- Author
- James Crawford
- Narrator
- James Crawford
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 4 August 2026
- Run Time
- 16 hours 42 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Climate change
What to expect
"Crawford belongs with other storyteller-explorers—strolling player-writers like Iain Sinclair, Rebecca Solnit, and Robert Macfarlane—who are stretching naturalist observation into incisive cultural inquiry.... Riveting." --NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
"Crawford is at his best when surrendering to his propensity for reverie, an irrepressible, almost romantic sense of wonder that drives the reader from chapter to chapter." --WASHINGTON POST
From the acclaimed author of The Edge of the Plain, a journey to the ravaged frontiers of extractive industry and the promising, often radical alternatives emerging just as we reach the point of exhausting the earth’s natural resources.
Over the last half-century, humanity has taken more from the Earth than in all prior history combined. The planet is littered with the vast scars of extraction – yet, ironically, it is only by confronting the ruins of our ‘old’ world that we can find the path towards the ‘new’.
In The Vanishing Earth, James Crawford, born into a landscape and family steeped in fossil fuels, takes readers to the literal and ideological frontiers of extraction.Beginning with the story of humanity’s decoupling from nature, Crawford embarks on an epic journey to five resource landscapes rapidly trending towards exhaustion: landscapes of rock, metal, sand, water and thought. From the salt flats of Chile’s Atacama Desert lithium mines to the ‘sacrifice zone’ of Florida’s phosphorus-rich Bone Valley, and even chillingly advanced attempts to harvest personal data from the brain itself, Crawford explores some of the most extreme scenes of the Anthropocene. Along the way, he asks what lies behind our insatiable appetites and explores emerging alternatives that might just spare our vanishing natural resources, transform our economies, and save our relationship with nature itself.
Critics Review
-
The best books leave readers with facts they didn't know. The rare ones leave them with ideas they cannot stop testing against experience. Since finishing The Vanishing Earth, it has become difficult to watch a corporate merger, scroll through social media, read about artificial intelligence or hear the language of ‘human resources’ without wondering whether another form of extraction is taking place. Crawford gives readers a new lens through which to see the modern world. Once you've looked through it, it's surprisingly difficult to look away.
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
-
Reveries of natural wonder buoyThe Vanishing Earth, a consummate exposé of the pumping, blasting, stripping, felling, and leaching of what remains of the material planet…timely and profound…The Vanishing Earthis essential reading for anyone who might carry a cellphone, purchase a car, heat a home, sip water, or vote on data-center zoning. In it, James Crawford brilliantly lays bare the landscapes we have riven to extract their treasures and the wonders remaining in urgent need of rescue.
Washington Independent Review of Books
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Beautifully written, surprising and (dare I say it) important, The Vanishing Earth explores the ragged edges and obscure interiors of capitalism's relentlessly expanding territory and asks how we can stop commodifying and consuming everything from sand to our own minds before it really is too late. This book is worth your time and attention.
Adam Welz, author of THE END OF EDEN
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The Vanishing Earth is an astounding achievement, and the best account I've yet read of the modern pathology of extraction. It's accessible and rigorous, ranging across continents and decades, and alternately chilling, terrifying, and infuriating, particularly in its lucid demonstration of the foreknowledge of the oil and gas giants and the historic and ongoing denialism of the economic and political mainstream. Crawford expertly guides us across an impressive range of material and actors, in prose that's both elegant and gripping. It's a vital, bracing synthesis, rousing and clear-sighted, and one that's ultimately not without hope, in its belief that the world can be repaired and remade.
author of IN ASCENSION
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In The Vanishing Earth, James Crawford travels beyond the physical frontiers of a planet consuming itself into the human psyche, where the harvesting of thought, attention, emotions, and neural data represents the latest, and most intimate, form of extraction. The Vanishing Earth is urgent and immersive. Crawford asks not just what we are losing but why we can’t stop.
Greg Grandin, author of AMERICAN, AMÈRICA
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An intrepid, poetic exploration of our planet's fast-diminishing natural wealth and the colossal systems we've engineered to extract and distribute it. James Crawford's deep investigation of the Anthropocene's discontents will leave you awestruck by human ingenuity and hubris — and equally astonished by our species' shortsightedness.
Ben Goldfarb, author of CROSSINGS
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Urgent, illuminating, and deeply unsettling, The Vanishing Earth forces us to confront a stark question: if the logic of extraction is driving us toward planetary collapse, what kind of society must we build to escape it?
Kohei Saito, internationally bestselling author of SLOW DOWN
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You will never look at sand, food, phones, or concrete the same way after reading this book. A touching exploration of the dark underbelly of our modern world and how we can move beyond it.
Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse
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In the spirit of poetic observer-writers like Robert Macfarlane and Barry Lopez, Crawford - who was born into a family of oil men (his engineer father worked on pipelines, and festooned the walls of the family home in the Scottish Highlands with photos of oil rigs and platforms) - visits five landscapes, including lithium mines in Chile and Florida’s phosphate fields, to trace the history and limits of resource extraction and to learn about emerging, sometimes radical, alternatives.
The Globe and Mail
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[A] sweeping account of the toll the pursuit of endless economic growth has taken on the planet…a dizzying feat of reporting.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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Crawford travels around the world examining the escalating catastrophic havoc perpetrated on the planet's biogeochemical integrity in terms of land and natural cycles…a compelling call for urgent action.
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Details
- Author
- James Crawford
- Narrator
- James Crawford
- Duration
- 16 hours 42 minutes
- Release Date
- 4 August 2026
- ISBN
- 9781639733248
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- Climate change
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents The Vanishing Earth written and read by James Crawford"Crawford belongs with other storyteller-explorers—strolling player-writers like Iain Sinclair, Rebecca Solnit, and Robert Macfarlane—who are stretching naturalist observation into incisive cultural inquiry.... Riveting." --NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS"Crawford is at his best when surrendering to his propensity for reverie, an irrepressible, almost romantic sense of wonder that drives the reader from chapter to chapter." --WASHINGTON POSTFrom the acclaimed author of The Edge of the Plain, a journey to the ravaged frontiers of extractive industry and the promising, often radical alternatives emerging just as we reach the point of exhausting the earth’s natural resources.Over the last half-century, humanity has taken more from the Earth than in all prior history combined. The planet is littered with the vast scars of extraction – yet, ironically, it is only by confronting the ruins of our ‘old’ world that we can find the path towards the ‘new’.In The Vanishing Earth, James Crawford, born into a landscape and family steeped in fossil fuels, takes readers to the literal and ideological frontiers of extraction.Beginning with the story of humanity’s decoupling from nature, Crawford embarks on an epic journey to five resource landscapes rapidly trending towards exhaustion: landscapes of rock, metal, sand, water and thought. From the salt flats of Chile’s Atacama Desert lithium mines to the ‘sacrifice zone’ of Florida’s phosphorus-rich Bone Valley, and even chillingly advanced attempts to harvest personal data from the brain itself, Crawford explores some of the most extreme scenes of the Anthropocene. Along the way, he asks what lies behind our insatiable appetites and explores emerging alternatives that might just spare our vanishing natural resources, transform our economies, and save our relationship with nature itself.
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