Book Reviews

A Complexity Approach to Sustainability – Theory and Application: Review

The sustainability of a human society is not just about its relationship with the environment: it's a problem concerning the nature of the society and the way it is organised. This is the important message of a book by Angela Espinosa and Jon Walker, reviewed here by John Jopling.

The Future of Money: Review

Published by Green Books, The Future of Money by James Robertson restates much of his thinking around monetary reform and brings it bang up to date in the context of the Euro crisis. It focuses a great deal on the arguments for governments reclaiming their right to issue money from the banks, and the enormous potential benefits to society of so doing. Highly recommended.

The Localization Reader: Review

Feasta member Aidan McKeown believes that overall, this book "succeeds in delivering a powerful argument that humanity will be forced into – and, crucially, benefit from – a move to a more locally-based and less societally complex way of living. Moreover, by including an historical perspective, it shows that what we are facing has precedents in our collective past: people have repeatedly adapted to crisis, often proactively choosing less complex societal arrangements."

Occupy World Street – a global roadmap for radical economic and political reform: Review

This book is a clearly thought out and well written analysis of the extremely grave state we are in and it offers some clear proposals about what could and should be done to change the system as a whole.

The Affluent Society by J.K. Galbraith: Review

Reading The Affluent Society is a revitalising and empowering shot in the arm for anyone questioning in any way what JK calls the 'conventional wisdom'. The book, first written in 1958 and then reissued as a new edition in 1998 is an astonishing tour de force, debunking and deconstructing the tenets of the 'central tradition' of economics.

Climate Governance at the Crossroads: Review

by John Jopling. A good test of the usefulness of an academic book is: has it helped us to think differently? This book seeks to do precisely that: it seeks to persuade the reader to think differently about climate governance. In my case it has succeeded.

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