‘A Book in Five Minutes’

‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.1, 1^st September 2021:

‘The Limits to Growth’ (1972)

Published in 1972, and shrouded in controversy since that date, ‘The Limits to Growth’ is the most successful econometric projection ever made, and a groundbreaking ecological book that the environment movement itself has a deep-seated fear of discussing in public.

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‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.2, 8^th September 2021:

‘The Technology of Political Control’ (1977)

The most effective books are able to transcend time; by applying a relatively broad, well-observed analysis of the roots of complex issues in the past, that continue to have relevance today. This is such a book.

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‘A Book (or report) in Five Minutes’, no.3, 15^th September 2021:

‘Ecological Economics For Humanity’s Plague Phase’ (2020)

Each morning the Sun comes up. We instinctively know this. The problem is that in the modern world, people sometimes find it difficult to tell the difference between: Natural phenomena – like the Sun rising; and the grandiose myths we tell ourselves – like the functioning of the economy.

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‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.4, 20^th September 2021:

‘Diet for a Small Planet’ (1971)

I think there are very few books that you can truthfully say, ‘this book changed my life’. When I first came across it almost forty years ago, this one changed mine. It explained clearly to me what it was I needed to know to eat well.

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‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.5, 4^th October 2021:

‘Post-Scarcity Anarchism’ (1971/2004)

Murray Bookchin foresaw the rise of consumerism, and the changing dialogue in society towards a politics of ‘post-scarcity’. ‘Post-Scarcity Anarchism’ is an anthology of Bookchin’s essays around this theme.

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‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.6, 7^th November 2021:

‘This Land is Our Land’ (1987)

A book which traces an arc of how the shift from Feudalism into Capitalism, via the reciprocal Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, not only changed the landscape, but also created many of the social ills that still afflict society today.

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‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.7, 19^th January 2022:

‘The Deep Ecology Movement’ (1980)

Forty-two years on from its publication, Bill Devall’s paper and its clear critique – now realised in the predicted failure of the movement to make change – deserves a much greater audience.

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‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.8, 28^th February 2022:

‘The Conquest of Bread’ (1906)

Peter Kropotkin’s 1906 book doesn’t just challenge the power elite. At its core it challenges the general approach of ‘the left’, and the left's infatuation with lofty ideals rather than the basic needs and conditions of the people.

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‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.9, 16^th March 2022:

‘Rebels Against the Future’ (1995)

In the late 1990s, on the back of the rising and soon-to-burst dot-com bubble, the media often featured Kirkpatrick Sale. His 1995 book, ‘Rebels Against the Future’, presents a detailed history of the Luddite movement, and what that historic movement represents to our ‘modern’ society today.

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‘A Book in Five Minutes’, no.10, 29^th March 2022:

‘My Name Is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization’ (1994)

This second in a techno-critical review trilogy might seem unrelated to the previous book on ‘The Luddites’, and yet it provides the same kind of criticism from a completely different angle – that of ecopsychology, and the trauma that the modern lifestyle creates for many of those subject to it.

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