The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity
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Is the “state of nature” just a relic of early modern philosophy, or is it a warning about our future?
Recent geopolitical upheavals reveal that our rules-based international order is far more fragile than we might care to admit. When the raw logic of power reasserts itself, we are forced to ask: are we witnessing cracks in the ‘thin veneer’ of civilisation?This new blog post, published to accompany the launch of my new book, explores
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The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity: Introduction
An introduction to the book The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity: Tracing the Roots of Colonialism, Secularity, and Ecology, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2025. In this video, the first in a new series and rather longer than the others, I read the book’s Introduction, entitled “The State