In this episode from the New Books Network podcast, Bruce Clarke is interviewed on his recent book, Gaian Systems: Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of the Anthropocene.

“Why have millions of readers and viewers become magnetized by the hitherto arcane field of plant communication? The article argues that the contemporary appeal of plant communication is rooted in a quest for alternative modes of being to neoliberalism, modes more accommodating of the coexistence of cooperation and competition in human and more-than-human communities.”

In this article, historian Kate Brown considers the connections between plants, biospheres, and the politics of breathing. “What can the history of controlled environments tell us,” she asks, “about how we understand the planet today?”