As the great American labor organizer and socialist Mary Harris ‘Mother’ Jones said: “Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts.”
by Ian Angus
Twenty years ago, a list of books about Marxism and ecology would have been very short indeed — and most of them would have been hostile to Marxism. Even the friendly books argued that Marxism needed a major overhaul before it could be considered relevant to environmental concerns.
That’s changed. Two books published at the turn of the century, Paul Burkett’s Marx and Nature, and John Bellamy Foster’s Marx’s Ecology, initiated a new wave of work by scholar-activists who, as Burkett wrote, “consider people-nature relations from the standpoint of class relations and the requirements of human emancipation.”
The following list does not pretend to be complete. I could easily double or triple the number of titles without covering the field, but I’ve tried to keep it to a manageable length. That forced me to drop some very good books that don’t quite qualify as “essential.”
With one exception, all were published in the past 20 years. All are still in print, so far as I know.
My principal criteria were subjective: these are books that I have found particularly valuable, that I refer to frequently, and that I often recommend to others. I make no apology for including two of my own books — if I didn’t think people ought to read them, I wouldn’t have written them.
An Ecosocialist Starter Kit
Each person approaches ecosocialism with a different background and different interests. A basic book for one might be too difficult for another. With that caveat in mind, these are books I often recommend to people who want an introduction.
- Michael Löwy. Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe (Haymarket Books, 2015)
- Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster. What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism (Monthly Review Press, 2011)
- Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams. Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation (Monthly Review Press. 2017)
- Brian Tokar. Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change (New Compass Press, 2014)
Marxist theory and ecology
These are essential books but they are not easy reading. They require careful attention and study. Each investigates Marx’s views on the relationship between society and nature from a different angle —and as Marx said somewhere, there is no easy road to knowledge.
- Paul Burkett. Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective (Haymarket Books, 2014)
- John Bellamy Foster. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (Monthly Review Press, 2000)
Environment and history
The central premise of historical materialism is that the state of the world can only be understood as a product of historical change. These books both illustrate the historical materialist approach to the global environment, and illuminate developments in our past that still shape our world.
- Mike Davis. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (Verso, 2002)
- Martin Empson. Land & Labour: Marxism, Ecology and Human History (Bookmarks, 2014)
- Peter Linebaugh. The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All (University of California Press, 2008)
- Andreas Malm. Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming (Verso, 2016
General
These books address specific issues and topics from an ecological Marxist perspective.
- Ian Angus. Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System (Monthly Review Press 2016)
- Ian Angus and Simon Butler. Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis. (Haymarket Books, 2011)
- Mike Davis. Planet of Slums (Verso, 2006)
- Ashley Dawson. Extinction: A Radical History (OR Books, 2016)
- John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York. The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth (Monthly Review Press, 2010)
- Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin. The Dialectical Biologist (Harvard University Press, 1987)
- Daniel Tanuro. Green Capitalism: Why It Can’t Work (Merlin Press, 2013)
- Del Weston. The Political Economy of Global Warming: The Terminal Crisis (Routledge, 2014)
If you think I’ve missed something essential, a book that should be on every ecosocialist’s bookshelf, please mention it in the Comments section below with a sentence or two explaining why you think it should be in C&C’s next reading list.
Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern by Ariel Salleh, ZED books, 2017 (2nd ed.)
Exploring the philosophical and political challenges of bridging feminist and ecological concerns, Ecofeminism as Politics argues that ecofeminism reaches beyond contemporary social movements as a political synthesis of four revolutions in one, taking in ecology, feminism, socialism, and postcolonial struggle.
Ian, I meant to submit this title when you first sent out the request, but am finally doing so now.
Great list, but I would add Chris Williams, Ecology and Socialism (Haymarket Books, 2010) to your starter kit. It’s the first book I would recommend to someone who wants to find about Marxism and ecology.
I agree with Phil here. Reading Ecology and Socialism was foundational for me understanding of the roots of the environmental crisis.
The Commons Transition and P2P: a Primer
The Commons is a concept and practice that has been steadily gathering increased attention and advocates. Deeply rooted in human history, it’s difficult to settle on a single definition that covers its broad potential for social, economic, cultural and political change. The Commons is now demonstrating its power as a “key ingredient” for change in diverse locations and contexts around the world. The P2P Foundation, with its particular focus on the relationship of the Commons and P2P practices, is supporting this Commons transition by helping to share knowledge and develop tools to create common value and facilitate open, participatory input across society.
http://commonstransition.org/commons-transition-p2p-primer/
Download the 52 page primer directly at the Transnational Institute web site
https://www.tni.org/en/publication/commons-transition-and-p2p
Jason W. Moore, “Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital” (Verso, 2015). An indispensable guide to the development of capitalist “world-ecology.”
Absolutely. Jason W. Moore´s book (Capitalism in the Web of LIfe) is the most important one in this field of study. Innovative and with an analytical depth you don´t find elsewhere. So far it has not been mentioned – for some reason – here.
Raymond Williams’s 1982 pamphlet Socialism and Ecology. Not the most detailed analysis, but a groundbreaking statement of the ethical and political case for ecosocialism. It deserves to be included in any such list.
3 more for the lengthening list –
Richard Smith, Green Capitalism: The God That Failed;
Moore and Patel, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things;
Bonneuil and Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene.
Also, not a book, but I always recommend Solidarity’s “Six Questions for Ecosocialists,” especially Steve Bloom’s responses. https://www.solidarity-us.org/ecosocialistresponsebloom