Stephen Rees's blog

This book is unlike the majority of books I have reviewed here. It is a very serious, academic treatise. The reason I wanted to read it was not because I am a communist (I’m not) but because the blurb I got suggests that it “confronts the planetary climate crisis”. I did my due diligence and flogged my way through the entire book – which was a bit like going back to university. This book has huge amounts of foot notes. Often the overflow exceeds the large amount of page space dedicated to them. After a while I realized that the diversion to the footnotes was a serious issue which was slowing down the reading and adding considerably to my confusion. You do need to look up quite a lot just to understand the text since the original works cited are often in German and arguments multiply about the translations – usually plural. There is a lot more of the analysis of really old books than there is about tackling present issues. Moreover, the edition I got is the uncorrected page proofs which does not include an index – which really puts a crimp in finding again the bits I might have quoted.

Because it is a planetary crisis that has to be confronted there is no tackling of the very specific problem of the current US administration which is not just opposed to dealing with the crisis, but is actually doing all it can to make matters worse, as fast, and as profitably as possible. What is needed is Simultaneous World Revolution – but there is not a real idea about how that might be achieved. Let alone alone what those three words actually mean. Greta Thunberg does get a positive mention but her achievements – so far – do not appear to be very significant at turning the tide. Moreover even the Canadian government – which used to think of itself as progressive – is now backing even more large fossil fuel investments. And we are still arguing about subsidies for electric cars – which have now ended in BC – and generally neglecting the obvious of allowing people to find ways to reduce their travel requirements. The Premier of Ontario is seriously requiring people to return to the office – which in the city where he works is ridiculous.

When it comes to objective analysis – relying on real science and not wishful thinking – there does seem to be a real majority for acting to reduce carbon emissions. There are even active projects designed to achieve this despite the continuing rise in the hockey stick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_graph_(global_temperature) But it is hard to see any real prospect of actual change given who is sitting at the top tables. Our politicians are indebted for their jobs and prospects to rich corporations who are determined not just to continue with business as usual but want ever more at less cost to themselves. Most people can see this and would prefer something else, but that last bit remains a chimera.

And frankly this book does not seem to be likely to do very much to accelerate the process. Having spent a lot of time reading it, and trying to understand it, I have no feeling that it shows us how we are to “confront” the crisis.

“The End” will be published by Verso Books on November 25th 2025 Paperback original US$ 29.95 352 pages