Why read We Have Never Been Modern?

Book cover of We Have Never Been Modern

Book description

With the rise of science, we moderns believe, the world changed irrevocably, separating us forever from our primitive, premodern ancestors. But if we were to let go of this fond conviction, Bruno Latour asks, what would the world look like? His book, an anthropology of science, shows us how much…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked We Have Never Been Modern as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm

Author

The late French philosopher Bruno Latour was infamous for his iconoclastic work in the history and sociology of science and technology.

If you read only one of his books, I’d say go for We Have Never Been Modern because it cuts to the heart of things by disrupting the conventional understanding of modernity as a clear separation between nature and culture. Latour argues that even as “moderns” have been rhetorically invested in this particular bifurcation of the world, nature-culture hybrids are continually proliferating.

So if you’ve ever asked yourself, why are cities not considered natural landscapes? Or why are animals…

From Jason's list on The best books to shatter the myth of modernity.

Joseph Leo Koerner

Author

Is it possible to write a sophisticated and high-stakes philosophical tract but remain engaging, accessible, and humorous? Latour shows it can be done. Reading him makes one young and agile again. Along the way, you learn urgent lessons about how to mend the catastrophic mental divide between the human and the natural world.

From Joseph's list on The best books against writers’ block.