Devleena Ghosh

The current shift to renewable energy is dominated by globalised energy companies building large-scale wind and solar plants. This book discusses the consequences and possibilities of this shift in India, Germany, and Australia, focusing on regions which have now largely decarbonised electricity generation. The authors show how centralised models of energy provision are maintained, and chart their impacts in terms of energy geography, social stratification, and socio-ecological appropriation. The chapters emphasise the prominent role played by state regulation, financial incentives, and public infrastructure for corporate renewables, arguing that public provision should be re-purposed for distributed renewables, social equity in affected regions, and for wider social benefit. This interdisciplinary book provides fertile building ground for research in - and application of - future energy transitions. It will appeal to students, researchers, and policy makers from anthropology, sociology, politics and political economy, geography, and environmental and sustainability studies.

Climate change makes fossil fuels unburnable, yet global coal production has almost doubled over the last 20 years. This book explores how the world can stop mining coal - the most prolific source of greenhouse gas emissions. It documents efforts at halting coal production, focusing specifically on how campaigners are trying to stop coal mining in India, Germany, and Australia. Through in-depth comparative ethnography, it shows how local people are fighting to save their homes, livelihoods, and environments, creating new constituencies and alliances for the transition from fossil fuels. The book relates these struggles to conflicts between global climate policy and the national coal-industrial complex. With coal's meaning transformed from an important asset to a threat, and the coal industry declining, it charts reasons for continuing coal dependence, and how this can be overcome. It will provide a source of inspiration for energy transition for researchers in environment, sustainability, and politics, as well as policymakers.

Few books tell such a broad global history using an interdisciplinary approach that blends historical and cultural scholarship. The authors are based at UTS - faculty of Humanities and Social Studies. For five centuries, colonialism and modernity have profoundly shaped the cultures of the world. This book traces these interacting long-term historical processes, and the parallel history of anti-colonial movements and ideas. It outlines the rise to global dominance of Europe since the 16th century, and the attendant modernity that shaped and defined this rise. Gillen and Ghosh show how colonialism and modernity dramatically changed the lives of the colonised peoples, the invading settlers who established overseas colonies, those who remained in Europe, and the diasporas created by invasions, slavery, indentured labour and voluntary migration.