Preface Dipesh Chakrabarty; Introduction: The growing anthropocene consensus Julia Adeney Thomas; Part I. Strata and Stories: 1. Science: Old and new patterns of the anthropocene Jan Zalasiewicz; 2. Humanities and social sciences: Human stories and the anthropocene earth system Julia Adeney Thomas; Part II. One Anthropocene: Many Stories: 3. Earth system science: Gravity, the earth system and the anthropocene Will Steffen; 4. Deep History and disease: Germs and humanity's rise to planetary dominance Kyle Harper; 5. Anthropology: Colonialism, indigeneity, and wind power in the anthropocene Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer; 6. The ascent of the anthropoi: a story Amitav Ghosh; 7. Politics in the anthropocene Manuel Arias-Maldonado; 8. Very recent history and the nuclear anthropocene Kate Brown; 9. Stratigraphy: Finding global markers in a small Canadian lake Francine McCarthy; 10. Curating the anthropocene at Berlin's house of world culture Bernd Scherer; Part III. Future Habitations: 11. Anthropocene ethics, as seen from a Mars mission: a story Clive Hamilton; 12. Mutualistic cities of the near future Mark Williams, Julia Adeney Thomas, Gavin Brown, Minal Pathak, Moya Burns, Will Steffen, John Clarkson and Jan Zalasiewicz; Afterword: Jürgen Renn and Christoph Rosol.

'We all remember hearing the term the 'Anthropocene' for the first time, and the way it suddenly catalyzed fresh conversation between human and physical scientists. Julia Adeney Thomas and her distinguished colleagues rightly call us all on matters of accuracy as well as analysis. The stakes are too high not to get the Anthropocene right: we have a better chance of doing so in the light of this landmark book.' Alison Bashford, Laureate Centre for History & Population, UNSW, Sydney