Policy Press

Climate Change as a Crisis of Imagination

By Avi Brisman

Published

May 1, 2025

Page count

160 pages

ISBN

978-1529235715

Dimensions

203 x 127 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

May 1, 2025

Page count

160 pages

ISBN

978-1529235722

Dimensions

203 x 127 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Stories have always enabled people to make sense of the world and others, and this book encourages a radical rethinking of how we tell stories about climate change. This book proposes that, while climate change may be a result of policy implementation and the incompatibility of capitalism with our finite resources, a narrative failure is also inhibiting our ability to imagine alternative futures.

Considering the contrasting perspectives of writer Amitav Ghosh and theorist Mark Bould, the book reconciles their storytelling for criminologists and all those concerned about—and working towards avoiding—catastrophic climate change.

Avi Brisman is Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University.

1. This is Personal: A Preface to an (the?) Apocalypse

2. The Planet is Burning and Drowning and Dying: Who Needs a Methods Section and a Literature Review?

3. Ghosh vs. Bould: The Great Derangement vs. The Anthropocene Unconscious

4. Does it Have to be Either/Or? (Part I): Bould and “the Old’”

5. Does it Have to be Either/Or? (Part II): Ghosh and “the New”

6. Conclusion: Failure or Crisis?