Beautifully written, surprising and (dare I say it) important, The Vanishing Earth explores the ragged edges and obscure interiors of capitalism's relentlessly expanding territory and asks how we can stop commodifying and consuming everything from sand to our own minds before it really is too late. This book is worth your time and attention.

Adam Welz, author of THE END OF EDEN

The Vanishing Earth is an astounding achievement, and the best account I've yet read of the modern pathology of extraction. It's accessible and rigorous, ranging across continents and decades, and alternately chilling, terrifying, and infuriating, particularly in its lucid demonstration of the foreknowledge of the oil and gas giants and the historic and ongoing denialism of the economic and political mainstream. Crawford expertly guides us across an impressive range of material and actors, in prose that's both elegant and gripping. It's a vital, bracing synthesis, rousing and clear-sighted, and one that's ultimately not without hope, in its belief that the world can be repaired and remade.

Martin MacInnes, author of IN ASCENSION

In The Vanishing Earth, James Crawford travels beyond the physical frontiers of a planet consuming itself into the human psyche, where the harvesting of thought, attention, emotions, and neural data represents represents the latest, and most intimate, form of extraction. The Vanishing Earth is urgent and immersive. Crawford asks not just what we are losing but why we can't stop.

Greg Grandin, author of AMERICAN, AMÈRICA

Urgent, illuminating, and deeply unsettling, The Vanishing Earth forces us to confront a stark question: if the logic of extraction is driving us toward planetary collapse, what kind of society must we build to escape it?

Kohei Saito, internationally bestselling author of SLOW DOWN

You will never look at sand, food, phones, or concrete the same way after reading this book. A touching exploration of the dark underbelly of our modern world and how we can move beyond it.

Luke Kemp, author of Goliath's Curse

In the spirit of poetic observer-writers like Robert Macfarlane and Barry Lopez, Crawford - who was born into a family of oil men (his engineer father worked on pipelines, and festooned the walls of the family home in the Scottish Highlands with photos of oil rigs and platforms) - visits five landscapes, including lithium mines in Chile and Florida's phosphate fields, to trace the history and limits of resource extraction and to learn about emerging, sometimes radical, alternatives.

Emily Donaldson, The Globe and Mail