Branches

Branches takes its place alongside Hominescence and The Incandescent as one of the most important books of Michel Serres’s later career. In typical Serresian fashion, it brings together science, history, and religion to argue that our contemporary world must undergo an epochal change not only in our collective political, social, and environmental behavior but also in the latent collective mentalities that underlie. A major testament from a major philosopher now available in an excellent English translation. * Robert Pogue Harrison, Professor of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, Stanford University, USA *
Branches is one of most commanding and at the same time nimble works of Michel Serres’s extraordinary late period. It is a breathtaking series of meditations on the balance between the rationalising force of ‘format’, and the unpredictable buddings and branchings of ‘event’. Its majestic opening pages, moving from maritime risk to accountancy, geometry, typography, opera and celestial mechanics, typify the affluent comprehensiveness of Serres’s philosophical vision; while its spurts and sprints of invention, perfectly mimed in Randolph Burks’s lithe and wise translation, jubilantly salute the force of the unlooked-for. * Steven Connor, Grace 2 Professor of English, University of Cambridge, UK *