From the bestselling author of The End of Nature comes a passionate plea to limit the technologies that could change the very definition of who we are We are on the verge of crossing the line from born to made, from created to built. Sometime in the next few years, a scientist will reprogram a human egg or sperm cell, spawning a genetic change that could be passed down into eternity. We are sleepwalking toward the future, argues Bill McKibben, and it's time to open our eyes. In The End of Nature, nearly fifteen years ago, McKibben demonstrated that humanity had begun to irrevocably alter--and endanger--our environment on a global scale. Now he turns his eye to an array of technologies that could change our relationship not with the rest of nature but with ourselves. He explores the frontiers of genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology--all of which we are approaching with astonishing speed--and shows that each threatens to take us past a point of no return. We now stand at a critical threshold, poised between the human past and a post-human future. Ultimately, McKibben offers a celebration of what it means to be human, and a warning that we risk the loss of all meaning if we step across the threshold. His wise and eloquent book argues that we cannot forever grow in reach and power--that we must at last learn how to say, "Enough." "Passionate, succinct, chilling, closely argued, sometimes hilarious, touchingly well-intentioned, and essential." —Margaret Atwood, The New York Review of Books
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"In Enough, McKibben shines his powerful light on another momentous change that is upon us: the ability to re-engineer ourselves and therefore the very meaning of human identity. If he is right, then humankind stands on a moral and existential threshold--or cliff. We would do well as a society to weigh his bracing argument before taking another step."
— Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire
“A brilliant book that deserves a wide readership.”
— Publishers Weekly“Bill McKibben has produced a book that is both a sequel and an equal to his brilliant The End of Nature. Enough is an ambitious and important book.
— Los Angeles Times Book ReviewWithout question, this is one of the most important books of the year. McKibben deserves to be read, to be discussed, to be heard.
— San Diego Union-Tribune[A] brave and luminous book . . . Bill McKibben understands genetics--but he knows poetry, too.
— David Gelernter, WiredBill McKibben has done a top-notch job of researching and writing about one of the most important topics of the current age. Enough is an important book and needs to be read by everyone with an interest in keeping the human future human.
— The Weekly StandardFiercely important . . . the most thought-provoking piece of non-fiction I've read in a long time.
— The Globe and Mail (Toronto)In this wise, well-researched, and important book, Bill McKibben addresses the burning philosophical question of the new century, and the one that counts for the long haul: how to control the technoscientific juggernaut before it dehumanizes our species.
— E. O. Wilson, author of The Future of LifeBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Bill McKibben is the author of more than a dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Falter, as well as the 1989 work The End of Nature, which was the first book to warn the general public about the climate crisis. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College in Vermont and the winner of the Gandhi Prize, the Thomas Merton Prize, and the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called “the alternate Nobel.” He founded the global grassroots climate campaign 350.org; his new project, organizing people over sixty for progressive change, is called Third Act.