Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!) it says. Climate & Capitalism has received review copies of some of these books, but we do not receive any payment for reviews or for reader purchases.
Adam Hanieh
CRUDE CAPITALISM
Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market
Verso
Going beyond simplistic narratives that frame oil as ‘prize’ or ‘curse’, Hanieh shows in depth how oil is woven into the fabric of modern capitalism. Oil has a foundational place in all aspects of contemporary life — no challenge to the fossil fuel industry can be effective without taking this fact seriously. An essential contribution to debates around oil-dependency and the struggle for climate justice.
Alan Lester, editor
THE TRUTH ABOUT EMPIRE
Real Histories of British Colonialism
Hurst
A growing chorus of reactionary writers argues that the British Empire should be celebrated, that it was a benign, positive force. These powerful essays counter that campaign of misinformation, showing how racism, slavery, genocide, and unbridled exploitation defined the centuries of British world domination.
Venki Ramakrishnan
WHY WE DIE
The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality
William Morrow
Could we eventually cheat disease and death and live for a very long time, possibly many times our current lifespan? Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, examines the latest cutting edge efforts to extend human lives by altering our physiology, and debates social and ethical costs of attempting to live forever.
Arturo Casadevall
WHAT IF FUNGI WIN?
John Hopkins University Press
While pharmaceutical researchers focus on bacteria and viruses, fungal pathogens may produce the next global outbreaks, pandemics for which no vaccine and few medications exist. Global warming is forcing fungi to evolve, and in the process making them more dangerous to bats, amphibians, and food crops — and to immunocompromised humans.
Olivier de Schutter
THE POVERTY OF GROWTH
Pluto Press
The quest for growth not only undermines planetary sustainability, it erodes human rights, widens inequality, and modernizes poverty without eliminating it. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights calls for a new path in which progress is no longer focused on wealth and profit.
Boris Kagarlitsky
THE LONG RETREAT
Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left
Pluto Press
The Russian Marxist dissident asks if the left can put aside its paralyzing sectarianism and conceits of ideological purity in order to transform society for the benefit of the global working class. He believes it can, as long as it is unafraid to look critically at its own ideas and actions.
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