A destabilised climate, pollution, inequality and endless war are all testimony to the failings of modernity.

Instead, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira presents us with a challenge: to grow up, step up, and show up for ourselves, our communities, and the living Earth, and to interrupt the modern behavior patterns that are killing the planet we're part of. Machado de Oliveira breaks down archetypes of cognitive dissonance—the do-gooder who does “good enough,” then retreats to business as usual; the incognito capitalist who, at first glance, may seem like a radical change-maker—and asks us to dig deeper and exist differently. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. Machado de Oliveira breaks down archetypes of cognitive dissonance—the do-gooder who does “good enough,” then retreats to business as usual; the incognito capitalist who, at first glance, may seem like a radical change-maker—and asks us to dig deeper and exist differently. It is a book of acute vision and insight, and taps into that most underused faculty we so desperately need to attend to ‘the end of the world as we know it’: the imagination.

For fans of adrienne maree brown, Sherri Mitchell, and Arundhati Roy, Hospicing Modernity challenges our assumptions and dares to ask more of us, for the sake of us all. Hospicing Modernity invites its reader to dare and educate themselves by undergoing a process of self-unmaking. This is an outstanding book—truly original and profoundly perceptive in its contents and arguments, and multimodal in its pedagogic approach. Written in a tone that directly addresses the reader through stories, metaphors, and rich imagery, this book resonates with the vitality of life itself, taking us on a transformative educational journey that inspires us to take seriously our profound interconnection to all others—past, present, and future—with whom we share this world.

The dying can prepare for the end and those close to them can prepare for life without their loved one. Important and powerful, Hospicing Modernity diligently tracks a complex word—modernity—through the bewildering forest of our times. Instead, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira presents us with a challenge: to grow up, step up, and show up for ourselves, our communities, and the living Earth, and to interrupt the modern behavior patterns that are killing the planet we’re part of. It is fitting that the author is someone who genuinely has a foot outside of the tent of modernity and can bring a unique perspective to its study.Machado de Oliveira breaks down archetypes of cognitive dissonance--the do-gooder who does "good enough," then retreats to business as usual; the incognito capitalist who, at first glance, may seem like a radical change-maker--and asks us to dig deeper and exist differently. For Indigenous communities, the teachings that are necessary for engagement with sacred plants are very rigorous and require a lot of discipline. The book is about the necessary expansion of our capacity for dealing with difficult and painful things, to sit in complexity and uncertainty, to show up to difficult conversations and to exist differently and, put frankly, to grow up. It’s a book for the future, yet written to meet us where we are at right now as individuals living with trauma and facing ethical dilemmas about what it means to take meaningful actions under conditions of complexity.