Refusing the digital world of late capitalism

Selected as one of LitHub's 38 Favorite Books of 2022
Finalist for the 2022 Big Other Book Award for Nonfiction

In this uncompromising essay, Jonathan Crary presents the obvious but unsayable reality: our 'digital age' is synonymous with the disastrous terminal stage of global capitalism and its financialization of social existence, mass impoverishment, ecocide, and military terror. Scorched Earth surveys the wrecking of a living world by the internet complex and its devastation of communities and their capacities for mutual support. This polemic by the author of 24/7 dismantles the presumption that social media could be instruments of radical change and contends that the networks and platforms of transnational corporations are intrinsically incompatible with a habitable earth or with the human interdependence needed to build egalitarian post-capitalist forms of life.

"In an era in which there is an overarching prohibition on wishes other than those linked to individual acquisition, accumulation, and power, Crary's book resonates for his refusal to accept the idea that this is how we must live our lives." - Political Quarterly

"Scorched Earth presents a piercing critique of Western techno-consumer culture and the innumerable digital landscapes now created by the internet...Crary's essay comes at a critical juncture in understanding the effects and consequences in continuing to entertain the fantasies of 24/7 capitalism." - Theory, Culture, and Society

"Crary wants to jar people out of the widespread faith that because we've grown accustomed to the internet, and because we've allowed it to infiltrate nearly every hour of our lives, and because it may be hard to imagine a future without the internet, therefore the internet should and will endure...thought-provoking and sobering." - Resilience

"And as easily as man uses the advances of technology for the good of humanity, he has at the same time created a technological arsenal in the service of a toxic capitalist grid that breeds wars, as Jonathan Crary states in his book Scorched Earth." - The Art Newspaper

"Scorched Earth by Jonathan Crary, has a multiple-entendre title - he's describing what the internet is doing to society, he's describing what capitalism's long trajectory is doing to the Earth, and he's writing in a style that can only be characterized as a scorched-earth approach to the platitudes that dominate our contemporary lives...Rarely do authors address our common predicament with the fine-tuned anger and precise rhetorical scalpel of a skilled surgeon working on the body politic." - The Fabulist

"One could say that Crary's latest book is 'punk theory' because of the radically refreshing and absolutely necessary challenges that he brings to the table. More than ever in these days of compounding eco-social crises, we need the punkiest of critical attitudes, and Crary's essays are an excellent place to find that energy." - Oxonian Review

"Brilliant" - Times Literary Supplement

"Explosive...a polemic crackling with anger and commitment...inspired" - Art Monthly

"Excellent." - Expressen, Books of the Year

"[Scorched Earth] will do nothing to cessate any Black Mirror-style creeping anxieties you have that everything is going horribly wrong." - Euronews, Best of Literature 2022

"Crary convincingly outlines that the globalization of scorched earth capitalism has defaced the world and its inhabitants on a massive scale...Given the intensifying strain that global capitalism in its material and digital forms is putting on our selves, our communities, and our world, the just, compassionate, and direct vision of the future that Crary presents in Scorched Earth is one that demands our consideration." - Canadian Dimension

"Notable book, 2022" - Seminary Co-op

"With Scorched Earth, the distinguished cultural critic continues his vivisection of capitalism; the result is a brilliant, searing critique of the growing dominance of the internet, and especially social media, over all aspects of private and civic life." - Places Journal

"Scorched Earth is perhaps the first successful attempt at a vision of what a post-internet society might be like - a position [Crary] arrives at through a merciless critique of our hyperconnected world, and an analysis of how the internet complex has reshaped our perception of time, space, and individual agency." - Real Review