As the urgency of climate action is once again reinforced by a major new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus looks at seven new books for an ecosocialist bookshelf. Inclusion in the list doesn’t imply endorsement or agreement with its contents.
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The Truth Is The Whole: Essays in Honor of Richard Levins
Edited by Tamara Awerbuch, Maynard Clark and Peter Taylor, editors
Pumping Station, 2018
“All theories are wrong that promote, justify or tolerate injustice,” argued Richard Levins (1930–2016), an ecologist, evolutionary biologist, philosopher of science, Marxist, and lifelong fighter for a better world.
His work provides a framework for the understanding of crises in environment and society and their relationship with capitalism and imperialism. These essays pay him tribute by carrying forward his approach to understanding the dialectics of nature and society.
Peter Schwartzman, David Schwartzman
The Earth Is Not For Sale: A Path Out of Fossil Capitalism to the Other World That is Still Possible
World Scientific, 2018
A thought provoking and documented examination of solutions to social and economic inequality, ecological tipping points, and the threat of climate catastrophe.
It focuses on renewable energy systems, agroecology, and social organisation. The authors reject a business as usual approach, and argue that the revolution has already begun.
Zinnophobia: The Battle Over History in Education, Politics, and Scholarship
By David Detmer
Zero Books, 2018
An in-depth defence of the work of radical historian Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, against his many critics.
Detmer examines the attempt to ban Zinn’s book from Indiana classrooms and Zinn’s views on bias and objectivity in history. He responds in detail to 25 of Zinn’s most hostile critics.
Political Economy & The Rise Of Capitalism: A Reinterpretation
By David McNally
University of California Press, 2018
First published in 1988, McNally’s book argues that changes in the agrarian economy, which drove rural producers from their land and refashioned farming as an economic activity based upon the production of agricultural commodities for profit on the market, established the essential relations of modern capitalism.
Degrowth
By Giorgos Kallis
Agenda Publishing, 2018
Giorgos Kallis provides a clear and succinct guide to the central ideas of degrowth theory and explores what it would take for an economy to transition to a position that enables it to prosper without growth. Whether one agrees or disagrees with him, Kallis raises fundamental questions about the workings of capitalism.
Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future
By Mary Robinson
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018
A stirring manifesto on the most pressing humanitarian issues of our time. It focuses on grassroots struggles, mainly led by women, for a more just and equitable world. The author is the former president of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issues.
Below Freezing: Elegy for the Melting Planet
By Donald Anderson
University of New Mexico Press, 2018
A literary vision of climate change, combining scientific fact and newspaper reports with excerpts from novels, short stories, nonfiction, history, creative nonfiction and poetry.