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Novel Ecologies shows how the tech industry has taken up the wilderness mythologies that shaped one strain of American environmentalism over the last century. Denoting this environmental imagination Nature Remade, Allison Carruth investigates a distinctly West Coast framework that is at once nostalgic and futuristic. This paradigm envisions a future in which species, ecosystems, and planets are regenerated and rebuilt. Organized around three case studies (synthetic wildlife, the digital cloud, and space colonization), Novel Ecologies challenges the conviction that climate change and other environmental crises must be met with ever larger forms of engineering. Against the worlds conjured by Google, Open AI, SpaceX, and a host of start-ups, Carruth marshals writers and artists who imagine more livable futures while refusing to forget the histories underlying today’s manifold environmental crises. Novel Ecologies is published by The University of Chicago Press.



“In this ode to livingness amidst a reckoning with devastation, Carruth has written a book that we need now and that is a testament to the future.”—Cajetan Iheka, author of African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics



“Novel Ecologies is the first full-scale study of a pervasive but underexamined phenomenon: Silicon Valley eco-optimism: a tech-driven enterprise, eager to replace a damaged planet with an expertly engineered Nature Remade. ..This eye-opening account transforms environmental humanities, defining it as a public-facing, urgently actionable field.”—Wai Chee Dimock, author of Weak Planet: Literature and Assisted Survival



“Novel Ecologies is a beautifully-written vision that gives us seeds of possible futures yet to be grown. An essential text for the environmental humanities today.”—Nicole Starosielski, author of The Undersea Network