[Air-L] Apocalyptic Authoritarianism book announcement

[Hanna Morris]

Dear colleagues,

I'm very happy to share details about my new book that is now available (please see below)!

Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Hanna E. Morris (Assistant Professor, University of Toronto)
In Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power, media scholar Hanna E. Morris reveals how national anxieties following the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump have shaped American news coverage of climate change in ways that severely limit how it has come to be known, imagined, and contended with. Looking at climate change reporting across prominent and ideologically diverse U.S. newspapers and magazines over the past decade, the book traces how news media create an illusion of control in the present through nostalgic and heroic stories of the past. Morris identifies a new mode of reactionary politics called “apocalyptic authoritarianism” to describe the post-2016 alignment of historically privileged figures united by a common enemy of the “new” New Left and a shared appeal to fears of “total crisis.” Their antidemocratic paradigm portends national and planetary disarray if progressive social and climate justice “warriors” are not controlled at home and if “unruly masses” of climate migrants are not contained abroad. Ultimately, Morris calls for more transformative forms of climate journalism capable of facilitating—as opposed to impeding—robustly democratic responses to climate change.

Overview of chapters:

Introduction: Climate Journalism and Apocalyptic Authoritarianism in the United States

Chapter 1: A New Marshall Plan for the Climate: Reclaiming National and Journalistic Authority through the Myth of American Exceptionalism

Chapter 2: American Earth: Planetary Optics of Control

Chapter 3: Tyrant of a Trope: Visionary Sage Figure

Chapter 4: Climate Death-World and Life-World

Conclusion: Alternative Climate and Journalism Futures


The e-book version of Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power (Oxford University Press, 2025) is now available and can be accessed here:  https://academic.oup.com/book/59887

The print version is also now available for pre-order from most booksellers or from Oxford University Press's website directly (with the paperback and hardback version out June 6 in North America, and worldwide on August 23): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/apocalyptic-authoritarianism-9780197807675?cc=ca&lang=en&


I look forward to your thoughts on the book!

All the best,
Hanna E. Morris



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Dr. Hanna E. Morris, Ph.D.<https://hannamorris.com>

Assistant Professor

School of the Environment

University of Toronto