The States of the Earth : An Ecological and Racial History of Secularization

HOW THE DISENCHANTMENT OF EMPIRE LED TO CLIMATE CHANGE While industrial states competed to colonize Asia and Africa in the nineteenth century, conversion to Christianity was replaced by a civilizing mission. This new secular impetus strode hand in hand with racial capitalism in the age of empires: a terrestrial paradise was to be achieved through accumulation and the ravaging of nature. Far from a defence of religion, The States of the Earth argues that phenomena such as evangelism and political Islam are best understood as products of empire and secularization. In a world where material technology was considered divine, religious and secular forces both tried to achieve Heaven on Earth by destroying Earth itself. How climate, empire and secularization combined to make the modern world How did disenchantment lead to climate change? The States of the Earth argues that European empires have become secular as they were entering the age of coal and using Orientalism as a way of racializing the Other. While industrial states started colonizing parts of Asia and Africa in the aftermath of the French Revolution, massive conversion of natives to Christianity waned in favor of the civilizing mission. The critique of Heaven has thus overturned the Earth through empire and racial capitalism. Our globalized civilization has not been able to get rid of Heaven but has decided to look for it on Earth by accumulating growth through the devastation of nature. The secular age is therefore a fossil age and the Anthropocene, a Secularocene. Far from defending religion against a disenchanted modernity, this book suggests that phenomena such as evangelism or political Islam should be seen as products of empire and secularization. Religions themselves have adapted to a world in which steam and railways were considered as divine. 'An extraordinary book. Mohamed Amer Meziane's breathtaking analysis of the making of fossil states opens to a new genre of history writing where the very layers of earth's riches are at its center.'—Ann Laura Stoler, author of Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, Along the Archival GrainHow the disenchantment of empire led to climate changeWhile industrial states competed to colonize Asia and Africa in the nineteenth century, conversion to Christianity was replaced by a civilizing mission. This new secular impetus strode hand in hand with racial capitalism in the age of empires: a terrestrial paradise was to be achieved through accumulation and the ravaging of nature.Far from a defence of religion, The States of the Earth argues that phenomena such as evangelism and political Islam are best understood as products of empire and secularization. In a world where material technology was considered divine, religious and secular forces both tried to achieve Heaven on Earth by destroying Earth itself.