Overview

In this uncompromising essay, Jonathan Crary presents the obvious but unsayable reality: our 'digital age' is synonymous with the disastrous terminal stage of global capitalism and its financialization of social existence, mass impoverishment, ecocide, and military terror. Scorched Earth surveys the wrecking of a living world by the internet complex and its devastation of communities and their capacities for mutual support. This polemic by the author of 24/7 dismantles the presumption that social media could be instruments of radical change and contends that the networks and platforms of transnational corporations are intrinsically incompatible with a habitable earth or with the human interdependence needed to build egalitarian post-capitalist forms of life.

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9781784784447

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Reviews

At last a book about the urgency to find a way out from a system that has crossed a threshold of irreparability and toxicity. A book that is simultaneously desperate and refreshing. -- Franco Bifo Berardi Following on 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary here confirms his position as our most ruthless critic of all that exists. With a hammer of critical theory, he smashes the golden calf around which our lives revolve: the very internet itself. His sentences come packed with urgent truths long felt but only now articulated with the force they deserve. His clear-sightedness is the gift of prophets. -- Andreas Malm A passionate denunciation of the destructive character of capitalist technology, built on evidence drawn from every corner of the world, Scorched Earth is a major contribution to the reclaiming of our radical imagination and the creation of a new internationalism. -- Silvia Federici In an era in which there is an overarching prohibition on wishes other than those linked to individual acquisition, accumulation, and power, Crary's book resonates for his refusal to accept the idea that this is how we must live our lives. -- Alexandre Leskanich * Political Quarterly * Scorched Earth presents a piercing critique of Western techno-consumer culture and the innumerable digital landscapes now created by the internet...Crary's essay comes at a critical juncture in understanding the effects and consequences in continuing to entertain the fantasies of 24/7 capitalism. -- Henry Powell * Theory, Culture, and Society * Crary wants to jar people out of the widespread faith that because we've grown accustomed to the internet, and because we've allowed it to infiltrate nearly every hour of our lives, and because it may be hard to imagine a future without the internet, therefore the internet should and will endure...thought-provoking and sobering. -- Bart Hawkins Kreps * Resilience * And as easily as man uses the advances of technology for the good of humanity, he has at the same time created a technological arsenal in the service of a toxic capitalist grid that breeds wars, as Jonathan Crary states in his book Scorched Earth. * The Art Newspaper * Scorched Earth by Jonathan Crary, has a multiple-entendre title - he's describing what the internet is doing to society, he's describing what capitalism's long trajectory is doing to the Earth, and he's writing in a style that can only be characterized as a scorched-earth approach to the platitudes that dominate our contemporary lives...Rarely do authors address our common predicament with the fine-tuned anger and precise rhetorical scalpel of a skilled surgeon working on the body politic. -- Chris Carlsson * The Fabulist * One could say that Crary's latest book is 'punk theory' because of the radically refreshing and absolutely necessary challenges that he brings to the table. More than ever in these days of compounding eco-social crises, we need the punkiest of critical attitudes, and Crary's essays are an excellent place to find that energy. -- Miguel Sebastian-Martin * Oxonian Review * Brilliant -- Eric Bulson * Times Literary Supplement * Explosive...a polemic crackling with anger and commitment...inspired -- Marcus Verhagen * Art Monthly * Excellent. -- Helena Granstroem * Expressen, Books of the Year * [Scorched Earth] will do nothing to cessate any Black Mirror-style creeping anxieties you have that everything is going horribly wrong. -- Tim Gallagher * Euronews, Best of Literature 2022 * Crary convincingly outlines that the globalization of scorched earth capitalism has defaced the world and its inhabitants on a massive scale...Given the intensifying strain that global capitalism in its material and digital forms is putting on our selves, our communities, and our world, the just, compassionate, and direct vision of the future that Crary presents in Scorched Earth is one that demands our consideration. -- Owen Schalk * Canadian Dimension * Crary convincingly outlines that the globalization of scorched earth capitalism has defaced the world and its inhabitants on a massive scale...Given the intensifying strain that global capitalism in its material and digital forms is putting on our selves, our communities, and our world, the just, compassionate, and direct vision of the future that Crary presents in Scorched Earth is one that demands our consideration. -- Owen Schalk * Monthly Review Online * Notable book, 2022 * Seminary Co-op *

Following on 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary here confirms his position as our most ruthless critic of all that exists. With a hammer of critical theory, he smashes the golden calf around which our lives revolve: the very internet itself. His sentences come packed with urgent truths long felt but only now articulated with the force they deserve. His clear-sightedness is the gift of prophets. -Andreas Malm At last a book about the urgency to find a way out from a system that has crossed a threshold of irreparability and toxicity. A book that is simultaneously desperate and refreshing. -Franco Bifo Berardi A passionate denunciation of the destructive character of capitalist technology, built on evidence drawn from every corner of the world, Scorched Earth is a major contribution to the reclaiming of our radical imagination and the creation of a new internationalism. -Silvia Federici Following on 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary here confirms his position as our most ruthless critic of all that exists. With a hammer of critical theory, he smashes the golden calf around which our lives revolve: the very internet itself. His sentences come packed with urgent truths long felt but only now articulated with the force they deserve. His clear-sightedness is the gift of prophets. -Andreas Malm A much-needed critical voice ... Scorched Earth is a fascinating study that brings fresh and imaginative perspectives to issues of living, working, and consuming in our technocratic digital cultures. -Henry Powell, Theory Culture & Society In an era in which there is an overarching prohibition on wishes other than those linked to individual acquisition, accumulation, and power, Crary's book resonates for his refusal to accept the idea that this is how we must live our lives. -Alexandre Leskanich, Political Quarterly Crary wants to jar people out of the widespread faith that because we've grown accustomed to the internet, and because we've allowed it to infiltrate nearly every hour of our lives, and because it may be hard to imagine a future without the internet, therefore the internet should and will endure ... thought-provoking and sobering. -Bart Hawkins Kreps, Resilience And as easily as man uses the advances of technology for the good of humanity, he has at the same time created a technological arsenal in the service of a toxic capitalist grid that breeds wars, as Jonathan Crary states in his book Scorched Earth. -The Art Newspaper

Praise for 24/7 by Jonathan Crary: A dark, brilliant book. - Michael Hardt, Artforum A polemic as finely concentrated as a line of pure cocaine. - Los Angeles Review of Books 24/7 is the capstone of Crary's archeology of the spectacle and arguably the most significant of the lot. It's informed by the erudition of one of the most thorough and original researchers on the planet. - PopMatters A masterful exploration of the place of the human individual, their dreams and the future of the species in today's age of nonstop neoliberal capitalism and its multitude of manifestations. - CounterPunch Jonathan Crary updates Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man with a vigilant critique of the totality of the seemingly eternal present. - McKenzie Wark, author of The Spectacle of Disintegration 24/7 cuts through a lot of the starry-eyed nonsense people talk about the empowering nature of new technologies and keeps in mind the whole time that, as far as late capitalism is concerned, we are nothing more than ultimately disposable units for keeping economies running ... Read this, and ponder its implications. I would even venture to suggest you sleep on it. - Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian Crary's talent as a pamphleteer is unequaled... - Corriere della Sera Sleep is a standing affront to capitalism. That is the argument of Jonathan Crary's provocative and fascinating essay, which takes 24/7 as a spectral umbrella term for round-the-clock consumption and production in today's world. The human power nap is a macho response to what Crary notes is the alarming shrinkage of sleep in modernity. 'The average North American adult now sleeps approximately six and a half hours a night,' he observes, which is 'an erosion from eight hours a generation ago' and 'ten hours in the early twentieth century' ... A humane and bracingly splenetic counterblast, with a lot of interesting micro-theses along the way. - Steven Poole, New Statesman

Author Information

Jonathan Crary is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University and is a founding editor of Zone Books. His publications include Techniques of the Observer, Suspensions of Perception and 24/7.

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