An Evening with Jeremy Lent and Luke Kemp, at Heffers Bookshop

ECOCIVILISATION

It has often been said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism - and yet that is what the historical moment urgently calls for. Climate change has reached an emergency state, inequality continues to grow, and, for many, the future has never seemed more bleak. Incremental policy improvements are no longer enough - we need a deep transformation of our current civilisation to continue to survive.

In Ecocivilisation, leading thinker Jeremy Lent reimagines the basis of our civilisation, and argues for a new global system of living, one based on life-affirming principles modeled after nature's own design. What enfolds is a rboust framework incorporating Lent's own expertise, and the lived experiences of those on the ground already putting ecological civilsation's core tenants into practice - justice, mutuality, diversity, and symbiosis.

GOLIATH'S CURSE

A radical retelling of human history through collapse – from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond.

For the first 300,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change.

As we reluctantly congregated in the first farms and cities, people began to rely on novel lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. And when more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organization. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires – with vast bureaucracies and militaries – carved up and dominated the globe.

Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is a speaker and author of the award-winning The Patterning Instinct, The Web of Meaning and his new book Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All. He is the founder of the Deep Transformation Network and the nonprofit Liology Institute. He lives with his partner in Berkeley, California.

Luke Kemp researches the end of the world. He is the author of the bestselling book Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse and a Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge. He has advised and led foresight studies for multiple international organisations, including the WHO and Convention on Biological Diversity. Luke’s work has been covered by the BBC, the New York Times, and the New Yorker.

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