Daniela Russ’s Working Nature, published by Verso, reconceptualizes energy as a social relation rather than a material category, tracing how this concept emerged through two centuries of capitalist industrialization. The book examines the historical role of engineers, scientists, and economists in extracting, harnessing, and circulating nature’s products while contending with both social resistance and ecological limits. This intervention aligns with dark ecology and critical theory concerns about humanity’s extractive relationship with the natural world, offering a materialist critique of how industrial capitalism has constructed and managed nature as a productive force. The work engages with questions central to post-punk intellectual discourse around technology, exploitation, and the ideological frameworks underpinning modernity’s relationship to the non-human world.
Original article published on Verso Books — AI-generated summary.
Visit the website to read the full article at the source
