H. G. Wells and the Anthropocene

Shackleton, David 2026. H. G. Wells and the Anthropocene. The Oxford Handbook of H. G. Wells, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 348-360. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This chapter addresses Wells’s writing in relation to the idea of the “Anthropocene,” a geological epoch in which humans have fundamentally changed the Earth System. Wells anticipates this idea by developing a series of literary and historiographical forms that start to make visible an environment crisis on a planetary scale. Moreover, his “discovery of the future” allows him to stage global risks, including the risks of pandemics and mass species extinctions. These experiments with scale and risk are driven by his politics, which constitute an early example of “eco-cosmopolitanism.” Throughout, the recent discourse of the Anthropocene is used to illuminate aspects of Wells’s writing and politics, which gain a new urgency in our troubled environmental present. Equally, the way that he reimagines humans on a planetary scale might stand as a warning about some recent strains of Anthropocene discourse and the dangers of technoscientific responses to environmental crisis.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISBN:	9780198885023
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 April 2026
Last Modified:	23 Apr 2026 10:39
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/186584

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