Five new books for green-lefts and left-greens … two on capitalism and environmental destruction, and three on the Anthropocene
Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a semi-regular feature. We can’t review every book we receive, but we will list and link to any that seem relevant to Climate & Capitalism’s mission, along with an excerpt from the publisher’s description. Titles listed here may be reviewed in future.
Two important new books on capitalism and environmental destruction …
Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg
CLIMATE CHANGE, CAPITALISM, AND CORPORATIONS
Processes of Creative Self-Destruction
Cambridge University Press
This book explores the complex relationship that the corporate world has with climate change and examines the central role of corporations in shaping political and social responses to the climate crisis. The principal message of the book is that despite the need for dramatic economic and political change, corporate capitalism continues to rely on the maintenance of ‘business as usual.’
Stefano B. Longo, Rebecca Clausen and Brett Clark
THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMODITY
Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture
Rutgers University Press
In a critique of the classic theory “the tragedy of the commons” by ecologist Garrett Hardin, the authors move beyond simplistic explanations—such as unrestrained self-interest or population growth—to argue that it is the commodification of aquatic resources that leads to the depletion of fisheries and the development of environmentally suspect means of aquaculture. The authors highlight the historical, political, economic, and cultural forces that shape how we interact with the larger biophysical world.
And three on the Anthropocene
Victor Galaz
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE, TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS
The Anthropocene Gap
Edward Elgar Publishing
Combining theory development and case studies of ‘planetary boundaries’, emerging infectious diseases, financial markets and geoengineering, this groundbreaking book explores the ‘Anthropocene Gap’ otherwise known as society’s current failure to address the most profound environmental challenges of our times.
Jedediah Purdy
AFTER NATURE
A Politics for the Anthropocene
Harvard University Press
Climate change is planetary engineering without design. These facts of the Anthropocene are scientific, but its shape and meaning are questions for politics—a politics that does not yet exist. After Nature develops a politics for this post-natural world.
Alexander M. Stoner and Andony Melathopoulos
FREEDOM IN THE ANTHROPOCENE
Twentieth-Century Helplessness in the Face of Climate Change
Palgrave Pivot
Working through the writings of three twentieth century critical theorists (Lukács, Adorno, and Postone), the authors argue that the idea of the Anthropocene is a historically specific reflection of helplessness, which only becomes possible at the close of the twentieth century.