The Vanishing Earth: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Extraction

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.

"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

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.

James Crawford works for Scotland's National Collection of architecture and archaeology. Born in the Shetlands in 1978, he studied History and Philosophy of Law at the University of Edinburgh, winning the Lord President Cooper Memorial Prize. He has written a number of photographic books, including Above Scotland: The National Collection of Aerial Photography, Victorian Scotland, Scotland's Landscapes, and Aerofilms: A History of Britain from Above. In 2013, he wrote and acted as design consultant on Telling Scotland's Story, a graphic novel guide to Scottish Archaeology. He lives in Edinburgh.