"One of the most remarkable books I've read in some time. Thomas Nail forges a mode of materialist philosophy in conversation with recent, cross-disciplinary movements in the environmental humanities, generating a mode of thinking and theorizing that moves beyond the scale of human life."—Claire Colebrook, Pennsylvania State University "Thomas Nail has developed a much-needed, and previously underrepresented philosophy of geology. In elaborating a process theory of a kinetic earth, this book helps us imagine our planet as neither a static place of habitation nor a protective Mother Earth."—Matthias Fritsch, Concordia University "Is ecocide, unconsciously practiced by industrio-techno-capitalist humans to their own detriment and potential extinction, a direct result of the reduction and destruction of Earth's complex energy dissipation? In an ambitious and fabulous synthesis, with a Lucretian sensibility and deep scientific rapprochement, Thomas Nail gives us back a real Earth, where life is part of a planetary more-than-human dissipative system and humans better get with the flow. A fascinating, difficult, needed scientifico-philosophical document, Theory of the Earth should interest and irritate scientists as it provides a needed provocation to much modern environmental philosophy."—Dorion Sagan, author of Cosmic Apprentice: Dispatches from the Edges of Science "While Anthropocene ideology focuses on the destructive action of humans on a passive Earth, Nail posits that conceptual refocusing—away from conservation toward an ethics of energy transformation—can help address the serious environmental problems we face. Though chiefly a work of philosophy, this text is accessible for any advanced reader interested in environmental meta issues. Recommended."—E. Kincanon, CHOICE