It is a sombre book, a catalogue of loss and unravelling, but also a lucid homage to the fabulous utility of insects and a critique of our fixation with backbones. If anything, The Insect Crisis is even bleaker than Bradbury’s work of science fiction, revealing the terrifying implications of the continued loss of insect life. Like Bradbury’s short story, it invites us to shift our focus away from the large, iconic creatures of the animal kingdom and consider these minute invertebrates – those small things that “could upset balances” – and their hidden labour. A similar thread runs through Oliver Milman’s new book, The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World, a chronicle of the precipitous decline of insects and an investigation into what it means for human life and the creatures that surround us.
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