"This dynamic entry in the burgeoning field of environmental humanities is built around fifteen objects that represent the scope and peril of the Anthropocene--among them a monkey wrench, a jar of beach sand, a Blackberry, a mirror, and a cryogenic freezer box. The objects are framed by six more expansive essays reflecting on the meanings of the Anthropocene for scholarship and the world ..."--Provided by publisher.

Gregg Mitman is the Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History of Science, Medical History, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes and coeditor of Documenting the World: Film, Photography, and the Scientific Record, the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press. Marco Armiero is associate professor of environmental history and the director of the Environmental Humanities Lab at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. He is the author of A Rugged Nation: Mountains and the Making of Italy and coeditor of Nature and History in Modern Italy and A History of Environmentalism: Local Struggles, Global Histories. Robert S. Emmett is visiting assistant professor of environmental studies at Roanoke College, Virginia. He is the author of Cultivating Environmental Justice: A Literary History of US Garden Writing.