The Shock of the Anthropocene offers a critical reading of the concept of the “Anthropocene”—the geological era in which human activity has profoundly reshaped the planet. Authors Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz challenge the dominant narrative that presents this era as a neutral, technical development. Instead, they argue that the Anthropocene is the product of political, economic, and social decisions made by elites, not by humanity as a whole. The book explores different “histories of the Anthropocene” (such as the Capitalocene, Thermocene, and Thanatocene) to show that the causes of ecological collapse are historically specific. It is a call to politicize the ecological crisis and reject simplistic explanations.