The introduction charts Cormac McCarthy’s meteoric riseto literary preeminence, and lays out two of themost significant themes that emerge from McCarthy’swork yet remain critically understudied: first,McCarthy’s literary depictions (and critiques) ofAmerican capitalism as exploitative of livingsystems; and, second, the role of literature inreorienting cultural value of living systems. Thesethemes capture two of the great crises facing us inthe twenty-first century: over-consumption andecodisaster. By applying a methodological approachthat reads literary texts as complex systems, thebook looks at how McCarthy uses simplistic semioticsand complex stylistics to vivify these crises, anapproach that illuminates not only the significantachievements of this author but also thepossibilities of American literature in thetwenty-first century—as George Monbiot notes.Finally, it offers a brief overview of the twodistinct movements of the book: first, anexamination of McCarthy’s critique of the world asit is (the section focused on McCarthy’s critique ofdominant capitalist economic philosophies in theUnited States) and, second, a study of his vision ofthe world as it should be (turning to his depictionsof art and of a nomadic economic system).