Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus presents six important books on slavery, capitalist diseases, climate action, scientists resisting, economic planning, and technofossils.
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Slavery in the British Empire and Its Legacy in the Modern World
By Steve Cushion
Monthly Review Press
Cushion situates the crime of enslavement within the business practices that place profit before people. Not only did slavery pollute British politics for more than 200 years, but it still contaminates its contemporary capitalist system. To this day many of the direst problems still facing the world — from horrific economic inequality to rampant environmental decline — have their origins in the institution of slavery.
The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease
By Brent Z Kaup & Kelly F Austin
University of California Press
Over the past 50 years, insects have transmitted infectious diseases to humans with greater frequency and in more unexpected places. Through case studies, the authors show how financialisation of society contributes both to the creation of landscapes that favour vector-borne diseases and to the failure to prevent them.
All In: A Revolutionary Theory to Stop Climate Collapse
By Mariana Rodrigues & Sinan Eden
The capitalist system is the root cause of the climate crisis and has absolutely no perspective of solving it. The authors, associated with the Portuguese activist group Climáximo, propose an analytical, tactical and organisational model they believe can “push society into the biggest transformation ever occurred in history”.
Science in Resistance: The Scientist Rebellion for Climate Justice
By Francisco Racimo
University of California Press
In April 2022, hundreds of scientists rose in civil disobedience, breaking the law in more than 28 countries. Risking arrest, they glued their hands to roads, blocked government and corporate buildings, and chained themselves to the White House fence. A first-person account of the growing international movement of researchers stepping beyond conventional roles to alert the public about the need for action in the climate emergency.
Reclaiming The Future: A Beginner’s Guide to Planning the Economy
By Simon Hannah
Pluto Press
Decades of right-wing scaremongering has tried to consign economic planning to the dustbin, but the need for it is greater than ever — it might be the only thing that can save us from climate catastrophe. In this myth-busting and accessible guide, Hannah lays the building blocks for a grassroots economy that aligns our economy within human needs and environmental limits.
Discarded: How Technofossils Will Be Our Ultimate Legacy
By Sarah Gabbott & Jan Zalasiewicz
Oxford University Press
A blizzard of new objects has suddenly appeared on Earth: plastic bottles, ballpoint pens, concrete highways, outsized chicken bones, aluminium cans, teabags, mobile phones and T-shirts. Designed to resist sun, wind, rain, corrosion and decay, many will remain, petrified, as future geology. This new planetary phenomenon has generated new kinds of science, to show the far-future human footprint on Earth.
[Reprinted from Climate and Capitalism. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement.]