The debate on the origins of climate change is often considered a contemporary one, arising out of the present crisis. In Chaos in the Heavens, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Fabien Locher show that we have been thinking and debating on the consequences of our action upon the environment for centuries. This question was raised wherever history was accelerating: by the Conquistadors in the New World, by the French revolutionaries of 1789, by the scientists and politicians of the 19th century, by the European imperialists in Asia and Africa until the Second World War.

This book shows that climate change was at the heart of fundamental debates about colonisation, God, the state, nature, and capitalism, and that from these battles emerged some key concepts of contemporary environmental science and policy. For a brief interlude, science and industry instilled in us the reassuring illusion of an impassive climate. But, in the age of global warming, we must, once again, confront the chaos in the heavens.