The Pulse of the Earth

“Adam Bobbette’s simultaneous making strange of Western science and making reasonable of animist thought give this book its charm and intellectual heft. I can’t think of any other book that is as balanced in its treatment of Western science and non-Western thought and as insistent on putting them on a level playing field. At once ethnographic and global in scope, The Pulse of the Earth boldly defines and owns the concept of political geology every bit as much as it is a book about Java or a political volcano.” - Nigel Clark, coauthor of Planetary Social Thought: The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences

“Adam Bobbette’s book is ambitious. To quote Goethe, it is ‘endowed with magnificent sensory perception’ and rubs against the patience of scholars who are more ‘successful at ordering phenomena and putting them under the proper rubrics.’ The Pulse of the Earth is a perilous and exciting book.” - Rudolf Mrázek, author of The Complete Lives of Camp People: Colonialism, Fascism, Concentrated Modernity

"Java is a worthy stage to host this intense combination of fiery volcanism, cosmology, and culture, and this work provides an accessible introduction to political geology in both concept and practice. . . . Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers." - J. Brewer, Choice

"This book is a novel, deep-time riff on Java’s famous volcanoes. . . . It is a must-read for aspiring political geologists, historians of Indonesia, and ethnographers of science. Anyone interested in the Indian Ocean will also find ample inspiration for thinking the sea as an inhabited and geologically animated extension of far-reaching polities." - Lukas Ley, H-Environment, H-Net Reviews

"Bobbette’s new book marks again an important contribution to an emerging scholarship that blurs the boundary between geological and social history . . . . Bobbette succeeds, not only in centering 'the geo in geopolitics' . . . but also in unearthing the geosocial tectonics through which different earth knowledges are folded and through which geopower operates." - Rony Emmenegger, Geographica Helvetica

". . . the extensively researched work is a profound contribution to the intersection of geography, religion, and the history of science. . . In Bobette’s revision of the history of science in colonial Indonesia, the importance of non-western influence is illuminated, while the unity of science is preserved." - Benjamin Trumble, IIAS Review

"The Pulse of the Earth is a path-breaking work that foregrounds the intertwining of geological knowledge and politics in producing the science of modern geology."

“The Pulse of the Earth is a well-timed and useful contribution to the literature on the Anthropocene, political geology, and the history of science.”

"Taken as both aspirational intervention and historical description, Bobbette’s version of political geology is incredibly powerful." - Thomas Simpson, Pacific Affairs

"Bobbette wants us to know that modern geology was not discovered by Europeans alone. Indonesians also played a role. . . . I am grateful that Bobbette has brought this to light and thus opened up a new perspective on 'science'. . . ." - Gerry van Klinken, Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia

"The Pulse of the Earth is a groundbreaking intervention to the task of decentering 'white geology'.  . . . In reading the earth differently, Bobbette offers not only a geological history but a speculative cartography for struggles yet to come." - Zeynep Oguz, Dialogues in Human Georgraphy

"A monograph that successfully explodes the history of the geological sciences to excavate the ways in which Javanese volcanos and the peoples who populated them forged expansive understandings of the Earth." - Jonathan Saha, British Journal for the History of Science