Book review of Thinking like an iceberg, by Olivier Remaud (2022). Stephen Muecke, trans. Medford, MA: Polity. 180 pp. ISBN 978-1-509-55148-4.

What does it involve to think like an iceberg? Such is the question posed by philosopher Olivier Remaud in Thinking like an iceberg. Translated from the original French (Penser comme un iceberg) into English by Stephen Muecke, the book explores the multifaceted and porous histories of describing and thinking about and alongside ice. Taken as a whole, the book brings together glaciology, environmental history, anthropological studies and accounts, and historic and contemporary aesthetic responses to ice. It takes up the call by Mark Carey et al. to generate alternative approaches to and representations of ice through “storytelling, narrative, literature, and the visual arts” (Carey et al. 2016: 15). Through Remaud’s writing, ice manifests a human-like consciousness, with icebergs reduced to a human-like scale for our better understanding. By synthesizing historical and contemporary research into the social, cultural and environmental histories of, and relationships with, ice, Remaud encourages the reader to query how icebergs might be thought of as alive and as active agents in their own futurity.