"Counter-colonization" is the central concept of this essential work by Antônio Bispo dos Santos, which boldly contrasts the traditional quilombola way of life with that of modern colonialist society. Using a unique vocabulary of "germinating" words, the author offers an urgent and provocative perspective on how we live, dwell, and relate to both the earth and other living beings. Rooted in the Brazilian Caatinga—specifically the Quilombo Saco Curtume in Piauí—Bispo denounces "cosmophobia," the innate fear of the cosmos that he argues is the foundation of the monotheistic, Euro-Christian urban world, waging a war of definitions to weaken the colonizers' language.

Challenging the popular decolonial debate, which he identifies merely as the "depression of colonialism," Bispo proposes an alternative: a counter-colonial way of life that predates colonization itself. Avoiding binary traps, he introduces an "Afro-Pindoramic" framework designed to understand a deeply diverse world integrated by various ecosystems, languages, and species. The Earth Gives, The Earth Wants beautifully translates orally transmitted ancestral wisdom into written text, dissecting critical contemporary issues such as agribusiness, urban sprawl, ecology, climate, labor, and food. In the face of the relentless commodification of life and knowledge, this book champions the enduring, ancestral power of circularity: beginning, middle, and beginning.