‘Industrial Memories’: What the History of the Anthropocene Can Tell Us About Where We’re Headed

‘Industrial Memories’: What the History of the Anthropocene Can Tell Us About Where We’re Headed

By Rosa Leunbach The Thyssen Ironworks factory was a key site of the coal-powered industrial age. It was part of the Ruhr district in western Germany, which, in the 19th century, was Europe’s largest industrial area. For centuries, coal was mined and steel was smelted there, transforming the landscape, polluting the air and permanently altering the social fabric. When coal mining was offshored in the 1960s, the region was left poor, densely popu…