Anthropy: A Big History of Civilization's Hidden Costs

No civilization eliminates disorder.
It only moves it-onto other lands, other bodies, other generations.

ANTHROPY gives that displacement a name-anthropy, the entropy of order-and a lens to track it across 3.3 million years, from the first fire to a data center venting its heat into the snow.

The services it delivers feel weightless. The electricity, water, minerals, labor, and waste behind them are not.

Through 168 milestones, ANTHROPY turns that question into an analytical framework for reading climate, technology, money, inequality, and political power.

Organized into seven historical ages, the book can be read from beginning to end or entered at any milestone. Begin with the crisis that concerns you most, then follow the costs it pushes out of sight.

For readers of big history, political economy, ecological economics, and the philosophy of power, ANTHROPY offers more than another warning. It offers a concept to think with.

More than 600 pages.
Seven ages. 168 milestones.
3.3 million years of human organization.

Order here. Debt elsewhere.