Big Here and the Long Now

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962 – 2024) was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and former President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). He was among the most highly cited anthropologists of his generation, and his classic and accessible textbook Small Places, Large Issues remains a cornerstone in anthropology courses. His later books, including Overheating, tackled the important issue of climate change within the discipline.

• Introduction: The Big Here and the Long NowPart I. A Global History of Standardisation1. Stories of Loss2. Everything Was Not Better Before3. The World after 14924. The Global Bulldozers: State and Market5. Scale Collisions6. The Loss of Flexibility Part II. Overheating in the 21st Century7. The World after 19918. The Homogenocene9. The Smartphone and the Container Ship10. The Botanical Garden – and the Zoological One11. Concrete12. Soil13. Invasions14. Language15. Food16. The Sensory System17. Modules in a Customised World18. Good StandardisationPart III. Miracles of Creolisation19. David and Goliath20. Cracks in the Concrete21. Desensitisation22. Boundary Crossings23. Creole Conviviality24. The Miracles of Creolisation25. TAMAAfterword and AcknowledgementsNotesBibliographyIndex

'Truly an inspiration. Only someone of Eriksen's stature could write this call to intellectual and political action in everyday life with such authority, lucidity and grounding. Through smartphones, containerships, cement and soil, Eriksen shows us that there are small signs of more liveable worlds than the juggernaut of globalisation allows'