Remember David: Thoughts on Luke Kemp’s ‘Goliath’s Curse’
As is my wont, I’m going to spend more time talking about what I disagree with in the book than what I agree with.
book review
In his new book, activist Chris Dixon teaches us that beating burnout in social movements requires strategy
“For the Long Haul” diagnoses the roots of burnout among organizers and offers lessons from movement elders to combat it.
‘Goliath’s Curse’: Author Luke Kemp charts the rise and collapse of societies ruled by elites, but offers no way forward – book review
Kemp’s views on the emergence and nature of the state are debatable, but his insistence on the historical significance of the emergence of Goliaths is not.
Who Gets to Adapt? Robert W. Collin on climate inequality and the politics of who is protected – review
Robert W. Collin’s Who Gets to Adapt? is a solid examination of one of the most overlooked dimensions of climate change: not who is at risk, but who has the power to respond.
On Natural Capital: The Value of the World Around Us by Partha Dasgupta – review
In On Natural Capital, Partha Dasgupta argues that mainstream economics has failed to recognize the finite nature of the natural world. Blending ecology and economics, he sets out a framework to account for our impact on the environment.
The Dawn of Everything
Graeber and Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything keeps coming up in my life—especially as I dip an amateur toe into trying to understand human prehistory—so I thought I had better take a look.
Book Review: In Bluefin Tuna, Fisheries Science Is Never Neat
Add it up, and it’s hard not to conclude that, as Karen Pinchin puts it in her riveting debut book, “Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas,” fisheries science is “an impossible, thankless job with no easy answers.”
Saying No to a Farm-Free Future by Chris Smaje
Who needs to read Saying No to a Farm-Free Future? Anyone thinking that the ecomodernist prescription might be a good idea; and anyone arguing with ecomodernists and looking for data to back up their feeling that “food” factories in megacities is not the best path.
How do people, relationships, experiences, and movements shape us?
Within a mere few pages of his debut novel, Altar to an Erupting Sun, Chuck Collins of Guilford, Vermont, sets the stage for his heroine, Rae Kelliher, to carry out a well-planned murder/suicide.
Review: Nothing but the Rain by Naomi Salman
Nothing but the Rain succeeds as a frightening but ultimately uplifting tale of heroism and survival, and a key ingredient in its success is the air of mystery it sustains.
For Epstein to be right, everyone else has to be wrong
In the long run, it doesn’t really matter whether Epstein is right or wrong because the earth will have the final vote.
The train that Epstein is trying to stop left the station a long time ago.
Review: The House of Drought by Dennis Mombauer
I found Dennis Mombauer’s supernatural eco-novella The House of Drought to be both captivating and confusing.
