Brave New Wild

Can technology save the planet? A new cohort of 'ecomodernists' insists that geoengineering, genetic technologies, nanotech and AI can solve our environmental crisis. But how would the world, and humanity, be transformed by bending nature to our will?

Almost a century ago, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World imagined a society founded on a radical idea. Using eugenics and powerful pharmaceuticals, its rulers would engineer humans to fit the society they wanted to see, rather than build a society based on the needs of humans. The result was a rational and efficient system. And the crushing of the human spirit.

Today, faced with an environmental crisis, our economic and political leaders are responding in the spirit of Huxley's rulers. Rather than building societies that respect the natural world, they are developing the means to remake nature itself. Yet channelling the same instrumental thinking that caused this crisis will only deepen it. We must examine that future, to challenge its assumptions and propose alternatives, predicated on a different vision of nature and humans' place within it. From the nuclear industry's careless mining of uranium, through to the centuries-old traditions of some of the world's first peoples, history is layered with insights into how humans have treated the natural world, and how this can guide us forward.

Inscribed in the ecological crisis is a mandate for a radical rethink. Cogent, insightful and bold, Brave New Wild rises to that challenge. It will make you think about the planet, and our existence on it, in a new way.

About the Author

Richard King is an author and critic based in Fremantle. Raised in the United Kingdom, he gained an MA in Literary History and Cultural Discourse and worked in publishing before moving to Australia. His work appears widely, including in The Australian, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Monthly, Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, Meanjin, Overland and Australian Book Review, and in The Best Australian Poems andThe Best Australian Science Writing . His most recent book, Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing our Humanity? (2023), was shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Award for Nonfiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. King writes regularly for Arena, focusing on the relationship between culture and technology.