Overview

Rhythms permeate our everyday lives: they animate our bodies, and structure our experience of day and night and the seasons, time patterns of work and leisure, and the temporal organisation of mundane routine activities. Rhythms are also intrinsically about flows of energy – heat, light, motion – that run through the world, from the smallest movements of muscles, to the petrol fuelled patterns of the rush hour, the spinning of wind turbines and shifting cycles of solar radiation. Energy and Rhythm in Society sets out to energise the rhythm in Lefebvre’s ‘Rhythmanalysis’ in order to develop a novel and far reaching polyrhythmic theorisation and exemplification of our collective living with energy in its many natural and technological forms and flows. Through so doing, it also provides a distinctive understanding of the urgent challenges and possibilities of transforming future energy systems and energy uses into more just and lower carbon configurations.

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9781786613356

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Reviews

Walker offers readers his view (extending Lefebvre's theory of rhythmanalysis) that the challenge of a low carbon future can be framed in terms of mastering the interactions between different forms of energy and the various rhythms that define people's lives, from natural circadian rhythms to the omnipresent technological rhythms of 21st-century life. Given this context, the challenges of a low carbon future can be alternatively considered by reimagining these rhythms and creating new rhythms that better position humans for a sustainable future. . . . Framing the current energy challenges in terms of rhythms is an interesting and novel idea that may appeal to individuals as they consider how to contribute to the coming and inevitable energy transition. Recommended. Rhythm and Energy in Society provides an urgently needed account of how and why it is necessary to bring energy and time together to tackle climate change and achieve low carbon futures. Walker offers an intellectually rigorous and innovative framework for how a carbon-dependent existence can and should be understood as dynamic rhythms in transition. This excellent book is essential reading for all scholars concerned with climate, energy and social change.--Cecily Maller, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Melbourne Energy and Rhythm represents a groundbreaking rethinking of the relationship between energy and daily life. Walker presents a highly readable and truly original account of how energy systems have come to be the way they are and what it will take to transform them for a low carbon future. I highly recommend.--Conor Harrison, assistant professor of geography, University of South Carolina

Energy and Rhythm represents a groundbreaking rethinking of the relationship between energy and daily life. Walker presents a highly readable and truly original account of how energy systems have come to be the way they are and what it will take to transform them for a low carbon future. I highly recommend.--Conor Harrison, assistant professor of geography, University of South Carolina

Author Information

Gordon Walker is professor in the Department of Geography and Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University.

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