The American climate emergency narrative : origins, developments and imaginary futures / Johan Höglund

Includes bibliographical references and index

Chapter 1: Introduction: The American Climate Emergency Narrative -- Chapter 2: Settler Capitalist Frontiers -- Chapter 3: Fossil Fictions -- Chapter 4: The Irradiated -- Chapter 5: Geopolitics -- Chapter 6: The Displaced -- Chapter 7: Ruins -- Chapter 8: Fallout Futures

This open access book reveals how much of what has been called "climate fiction" casts ecological breakdown as an emergency for American capitalist modernity rather than for the planet. The book traces the origins of this narrative back to the arrival of settler capitalism in America, when the understanding of the planet and its people as extractable resources was established. Since then, this narrative has elided the violent history of the climate crisis while at the same time leveraging the military as a bulwark against the crises capitalism has caused, the people it has uprooted, even the ailing planet itself. Johan Höglund is Professor of English at Linnaeus University, Sweden