From the bestselling author of The End of Nature comes a passionate plea to limit the technologies that could change the very definition of who we are We are on the verge of crossing the line from born to made, from created to built. Sometime in the next few years, a scientist will reprogram a human egg or sperm cell, spawning a genetic change that could be passed down into eternity. We are sleepwalking toward the future, argues Bill McKibben, and it's time to open our eyes.

In The End of Nature, nearly fifteen years ago, McKibben demonstrated that humanity had begun to irrevocably alter — and endanger — our environment on a global scale. Now he turns his eye to an array of technologies that could change our relationship not with the rest of nature but with ourselves. He explores the frontiers of genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology — all of which we are approaching with astonishing speed — and shows that each threatens to take us past a point of no return. We now stand at a critical threshold, poised between the human past and a post-human future.

Ultimately, McKibben offers a celebration of what it means to be human, and a warning that we risk the loss of all meaning if we step across the threshold. His wise and eloquent book argues that we cannot forever grow in reach and power — that we must at last learn how to say, "Enough."

"McKibben presents an uncompromising view, and an essential view. Readers will come away from his latest brilliantly provocative work shaking their heads at the possible future he portrays....This is a brilliant book that deserves a wide readership." Publishers Weekly

"[P]assionate and revealing....McKibben makes genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechology understandable even to those readers who are not techno-savvy....This is a disturbing though ultimately optimistic book that explores the possibility of technology replacing humanity and rouses within us the impulse to declare: enough." Vanessa Bush, Booklist

"A masterpiece....[P]iling unnerving fact upon unnerving fact, McKibben makes an eloquent case that we are witnessing the end of our climate as we know it." The Boston Globe

"Pensive and alarming....McKibben makes an eloquent contribution to our understanding of an earthly peril." The New York Times

From the bestselling author of The End of Nature comes a passionate plea to limit the technologies that could change the very definition of who we are

We are on the verge of crossing the line from born to made, from created to built. Sometime in the next few years, a scientist will reprogram a human egg or sperm cell, spawning a genetic change that could be passed down into eternity. We are sleepwalking toward the future, argues Bill McKibben, and it's time to open our eyes.

In The End of Nature, nearly fifteen years ago, McKibben demonstrated that humanity had begun to irrevocably alter--and endanger--our environment on a global scale. Now he turns his eye to an array of technologies that could change our relationship not with the rest of nature but with ourselves. He explores the frontiers of genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology--all of which we are approaching with astonishing speed--and shows that each threatens to take us past a point of no return. We now stand at a critical threshold, poised between the human past and a post-human future.

Ultimately, McKibben offers a celebration of what it means to be human, and a warning that we risk the loss of all meaning if we step across the threshold. His wise and eloquent book argues that we cannot forever grow in reach and power--that we must at last learn how to say, Enough.

Bill McKibben writes regularly for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Outside, and many other publications. His first book, The End of Nature, was published in 1989 after being excerpted in The New Yorker; it was a national bestseller and appeared in twenty foreign editions. His other books include The Age of Missing Information, Maybe One, and Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously. He lives with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and daughter in the mountains above Lake Champlain.

From the author of The End of Nature comes a passionate plea to limit the technologies that could change the very definition of who we are. We are on the verge of crossing a line--from born to made, from created to built. Sometime in the next few years, a scientist will reprogram a human egg or sperm cell, spawning a genetic change that could be passed down into eternity. We are sleepwalking toward the future, argues Bill McKibben, and it's time to open our eyes.

In The End of Nature, nearly fifteen years ago, McKibben demonstrated that humanity had begun to alter irrevocably--and endanger--our environment on a global scale. Now he turns his eye to a new and equally urgent issue: the dangers inherent in an array of technologies that threaten not just our survival, but our identity.

Imagine a future where lab workers can reprogram human embryos to make our children smarter or more sociable or happier. Some researchers are doing more than imagining this future: having worked with such changes on a wide range other animals, they've begun to plan for what they see as the inevitable transformation of our species. They are joined by other engineers, working in fields like advanced robotics and nanotechnology, who foresee a not-very-distant day when people merge with machines to create a posthuman world.

Enough examines such possibilities, and explains how we can avoid their worst consequences while still enjoying the fruits of our new scientific understandings. More, it confronts the most basic questions that our technological society faces: Will we ever decide that we've grown powerful enough? Can we draw a line and say this far and no further?

McKibben answers yes, and argues that only by staying human can we find true meaning in our lives. A warning against the gravest dangers human have ever faced, this wise and eloquent book is also a passionate defense of the world we were born into, and a celebration of our ability to say, Enough.

In this wise, well-researched, and important book, Bill McKibben addresses the burning philosophical question of the new century, and the one that counts for the long haul: how to control the technoscientific juggernaut before it dehumanizes our species.--E. O. Wilson, author of The Future of Life

In this wise, well-researched, and important book, Bill McKibben addresses the burning philosophical question of the new century, and the one that counts for the long haul: how to control the technoscientific juggernaut before it dehumanizes our species.--E. O. Wilson, author of The Future of Life

Enough is a passionate, succinct, chilling, closely argued, sometimes hilarious, touchingly well-intentioned, and essential summary of the future proposed by 'science' for the human race.--Margaret Atwood, The New York Review of Books

More than a decade ago, in The End of Nature, Bill McKibben became the first writer to confront the implications of global warming, framing the issue in a way no one could ignore. Now, in Enough, he shines his powerful light on another, equally momentous change that is upon us: the ability to re-engineer ourselves and therefore the very meaning of human identity. If McKibben is right, then humankind stands on a moral and existential threshold--or cliff. We would do well as a society to weigh his bracing argument before taking another step.--Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire

McKibben has produced a book that is both a sequel and an equal to his brilliant The End of Nature . . . Enough is an equally ambitious and important book. In it, McKibben examines the dark potential at the center of three glittering and converging technologies: genetic engineering and, to a lesser extent, robotics and nanotechnology. Where The End of Nature described a widening gulf between humans and our environment, Enough suggests that an even more terrifying break looms: a technologically driven division between the human past and a post-human future. In the name of progress, he asserts, we are about to engineer ourselves out of existence. McKibben is a gifted writer and thinker, and there is no better proof of his prodigious talents than the fact that he is able to make such a scenario seem not just plausible but likely. After reading Enough, the question must be asked whether or not this dystopia can be avoided.--Osha Gray Davidson, Los Angeles Times Book Review (cover review)

A reflective essay that surveys advanced technologies, what the leading minds feel about them, and the profound effects they'll likely have on society . . . McKibben has performed a public service with Enough by prodding us to ask crucial questions about the future of humanity that will be taking shape in just a few short years.--Steven Martinovich, The Christian Science Monitor

Your book, I think, will be recognized as indispensable. It makes an informed, careful, always intelligent response to the now inescapable question: Are we willing to submit our freedom and our dearest meanings to a technological determinism imposed by the alignment of science, technology, industry, and half-conscious politics? Your answer is sensible and difficult: We can, if we will, say no. The difficulty is in the next question: Is it possible for us to refuse to do something that we can do? This is not a happy book, but it is, in its courage and its affirmation of what we have to lose, a book that is hopeful and hope-giving.--Wendell Berry, from a letter to the author

McKibben turns a passionate a

Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-251) and index.

Bill McKibben writes regularly for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Natural History, The New Republic, and many other publications. His first book, The End of Nature, was published in 1989 after being excerpted in The New Yorker and was a national bestseller. His other books include The Age of Missing Information, Maybe One, and Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously. He lives with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and daughter in Vermont.