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Narrated by Simon Mattacks
Raj PatelUnabridged — 6 hours, 40 minutes
Narrated by Simon Mattacks
Raj PatelUnabridged — 6 hours, 40 minutes
Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. In making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, and devastated Earth. In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore present a new approach to analyzing today's planetary emergencies. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism. At a time of crisis in all seven cheap things, innovative and systemic thinking is urgently required. This book proposes a radical new way of understanding-and reclaiming-the planet in the turbulent twenty-first century.
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things is not only essential for understanding how capitalism puts a price on everything but a pleasure to read as well. Despite their considerable scholarly credentials (there are 56 pages of references), they write in a breezy and often witty style. For eco-socialists trying to reach a broader audience, this book should be read as a style guide."
"Compelling and capacious. . . . At seemingly every turn, Seven Cheap Things gestures to a potentially broader discourse that should embolden readers and scholars to view networks of exchange in new—and even ‘revolutionary’—ways."
"Any good dialectical analysis lives or dies by its synthesis, and Patel and Moore’s is spot on. Particularly, the concept of cheap lives stands out as a novel way to tie the important threads of critical thought on capitalism’s history into a coherent tapestry of how it persists, as well as a way to comprehend and resist capitalism in 2017."
"Sweeping erudition, and an impressive ability to synthesize disparate elements.
"A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things is a fascinating and informative work that reveals the role economics played in driving our species to the precipice of ecological disaster. . . . This book would be a valuable read for undergraduates, graduate students and scholars, as well as general audiences. Patel and Moore have captured very succinctly how divergent areas of human life have brought us the world we inhabit, and offer a fresh perspective on intersectionality, that encourages readers to think deeply."
An informed, sometimes acute, polemic against capitalism's half-millennium of colonial exploitation."
"A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things offers us a powerful . . . critical analysis and a glimpse of what the world might become."
"Offers a way of imagining, if not completely grasping, what it means to be fully human. The authors help us see what it is to be material in a world of ideas, and to be cultural in a world of matter."
"Recommended Weekend Reading"
"A provocative and highly readable guide to the early centuries of capitalism."
An informed, sometimes acute, polemic against capitalism's half-millennium of colonial exploitation."
02/01/2018
Patel (The Value of Nothing) and Moore (Capitalism's Ecologies) present an intriguing approach to analyzing today's planetary emergencies. The focus is on how modern commerce and international trade have transformed, governed, and devastated the planet by designing methods of cheaply making and using seven key things: nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives. The authors define "cheap" not as less expensive but as a set of strategies created by capitalism to control the web of life with the lowest compensation possible—something that is always a battleground and a short-term solution. The work nicely blends ecological research with broad stroke history to demonstrate how humans have invented strategies to make the world safe for capitalism. Beginning with the emergence of humans in the climatological Holocene era (12,000–11,500 years ago), the authors assert that the current century has been influenced by numerous abrupt and irreversible changes that climatological system scientists refer to as state shift. In their answer to this crisis, the authors entreat for a new intellectual state shift to deal with the looming human-made epochal disaster. This work provides a serious addition to the conversation about the ultimate fate of the planet. Simon Mattacks's subtly British-accented, steadily paced reading helps maintain interest in this important work that will appeal to fans of Thomas Robert Malthus's 1798 classic "An Essay on the Principle of Population," Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction, Bruce Scott's Capitalism, and David Hone's Putting the Genie Back. VERDICT Essential for all university libraries supporting climatological sciences, economics, and business curricula.—Dale Farris, Groves, TX
The authors tell the story of economics, people, nature, capitalism, and more as they explore the seven cheap things that have shaped the world we live in: nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives. Narrator Simon Mattacks reads at a fairly fast pace, keeping the information moving but also injecting energy into it. The mix of technical terms, names of people and places, and phrases in various languages don’t slow him down him a bit, and his narration is engaging. The authors discuss why and how each of these things was made “cheap” and also look at ways to understand the world—and the planet’s resources—in the twenty-first century. This mix of economics and ecology presented in Mattacks smooth, calm voice makes for a great listen. E.N. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
| BN ID: | 2940172667350 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
| Publication date: | 10/17/2017 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
