Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus introduces seven new books for people who know that the point is to change the world.
* * *
CAPITALISM IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution
By John Bellamy Foster
Monthly Review Press, 2022
Humanity’s future is threatened by the capitalist system in which we live. The quality and even existence of the human future will depend on the nature of our struggles, on our ability to reinvent the world by reinventing ourselves, and on our willingness to transform the destructive social conditions that surround us. The planetary revolt of humanity in the twenty-first century will succeed only if it takes the form of a unified, revolutionary subject, emanating from the wretched of the earth.
SOCIALISM OR EXTINCTION: The Meaning of Revolution in a Time of Ecological Crisis
By Martin Empson
Bookmarks, 2022
British activist (and frequent Climate & Capitalism contributor) Martin Empson argues that the struggle for a sustainable world can’t succeed without revolutionary politics. He argues that revolution isn’t a dream or an abstract wish, but the essential requirement of our time, and shows what it means in practice.
A SPECTRE, HAUNTING: On the Communist Manifesto
By China Miéville
Head of Zeus, 2022
Every political generation encounters the Communist Manifesto anew, learns what to focus on within it, finds problems, questions, analyses, answers, gaps and solutions for its own time. Award-winning Marxist science fiction writer China Miéville offers an imaginative, insightful, and very readable introduction to the modern world’s most controversial and enduring political document.
APOSTLES OF INEQUALITY: Rural Poverty, Political Economy, and the Economist, 1760-1860
By Jim Handy
University of Toronto Press, 2022
Between 1760 and 1860, advocates of “improvement” drove English rural workers from the land despite evidence that they were the most productive farmers in a country constantly short of food. Handy argues that such attempts, driven by faith in the wonders of capital, led to a century of impoverishment and hunger rural England.
THE CARTOON INTRODUCTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE
By Grady Klein & Yoram Bauman
Island Press, 2022
Revised and updated. Economist Yoram Bauman and illustrator Grady Klein have created the funniest overview of climate science, predictions, and policy that you’ll ever read. You’ll giggle, but you’ll also learn, about everything from Milankovitch cycles to carbon taxes. A unique and enjoyable presentation of essential facts and critical concepts.
SICKENING: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It
By John Abraham
Mariner Books, 2022
The United States spends an excess $1.5 trillion annually on health care compared to other wealthy countries, but the time Americans live in good health ranks 68th in the world. Dr Abraham’s no-holds-barred exposé shows how Big Pharma’s relentless pursuit of ever-higher profits corrupts medical knowledge, misleads doctors and harms people’s health.
TRANSFORMER: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
By Nick Lane
Penguin Random House / WW Norton, 2022
DNA is important, but it is only part of what makes life possible. Metabolic networks in the cells of all living things create, store and release the energy that keeps us alive. Biochemist Nick Lane unites the story of our planet with the story of our cells — what makes us the way we are, and how it connects us to the origin of life.
[Reposted from Climate and Capitalism. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement.]