The effects of human activities upon the environment were previously circumscribed, a local nuisance, but over time they have become the source of a pollution that is global.The results are evident: global warming, ocean acidification, the disappearance of countless species, contaminated bodies. Tackling the study of this process from a historical viewpoint allows us to surmount our stupefaction and discouragement, and challenge a process which seems inexorable. The pollution of the environment that begun with industrialisation is above all a social and political enterprise, forged in successive cycles, through power relations as well as inertia and cultural changes.

By embracing the history of global pollution over three centuries, François Jarrige and Thomas Le Roux consider not only conflicts and power structures in the industrial age, but also the dynamics that shaped capitalist modernity and their imaginaries of progress.

More information and programme: www.mfo.cnrs.fr/calendar/la-contamination-du-monde