As Indigenous scientist  Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most?

Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude.

The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, an inspiring vision of how to reorient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity and community

The Serviceberry : An Economy of Gifts and Abundance – Robin Wall Kimmerer –  Illustrated by John Burgoyne – 9781802067460

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As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers.

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two ways of knowledge together. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings – asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass – offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.

For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

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Israel’s pulverization of Gaza since October 7, 2023 is not only a humanitarian crisis, but an environmental catastrophe.

Far from the first event of its kind, the devastation Israel has inflicted on Palestine since October 2023 has merely ushered in a new phase in a long history of colonization and extraction that reaches back to the nineteenth century. In this book, Andreas Malm argues that a true understanding of the present crisis requires a longue durée analysis of Palestine’s subjugation to fossil empire.

Returning to the British empire’s first use of steam-power in war, in which it destroyed the Palestinian city of Akka, Malm traces the development of Britain’s fossil empire and shows how this enduring commitment to fossil energy continues to drive Western support for the destruction of Palestine today.

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‘What a wonderful book this is’ – Nigel Slater.

When Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual plants. The work drew them into an exhilarating investigation of paradise and its long association with gardens. Moving between the real and the imagined, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to a wartime sanctuary in Italy, to a grotesque aristocratic pleasure ground funded by slavery. Laing interrogates the sometimes shocking cost of making paradise on earth.

But the story of the garden can also be a place of rebel outposts and communal dreams. From the improbable queer utopia conjured by Derek Jarman on the beach at Dungeness to the vision of a common Eden cultivated by William Morris. New modes of living can and have been attempted amidst the flower beds, experiments that could prove vital in the coming era of radical change.

THE GARDEN AGAINST TIME – Olivia Laing – 15.90 € – 9781529066708

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One of the most iconoclastic thinkers of our time offers a brilliant new theory of how society works. What leads to political turbulence and social breakdown? How do elites maintain their dominant position? And why do ruling classes sometimes suddenly lose their grip on power ? For decades, complexity scientist Peter Turchin has been studying world history like no-one else. Assembling vast databases mined from 10,000 years of human activity, and then developing new models. He has transformed the way we learn from the past. End Times is the result: a ground-breaking account of how society works.

The lessons, he argues, are clear. When the balance of power between the ruling class and the majority tips too far in favour of elites, income inequality surges. The rich get richer, the poor further impoverished.

As more people try to join the elite, frustration with the establishment brims over, often with disastrous consequences. Elite overproduction led to state breakdown in imperial China, in medieval France, in the American Civil War.  And it is happening now. But while we are far along the path toward violent political rupture, Turchin’s models also light the way to a brighter future.

Drawing insight from those occasions in history where the balance was restored, End Times also points towards a different future: an escape from the patterns of the past.

End Times:Elites, Counter-Elites And The Path Of Political Disintegration – ¨Peter Turchin – 9780141999289 – 15,90

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We live in an age of increasing complexity, where accelerating technology and global interconnection hold more promise. And more peril – than any other time in human history.

As well as financial crises, issues around climate change, automation, growing inequality and polarization are all rooted in the economy, yet standard economic predictions fail us. Many books have been written about Doyne Farmer and his pioneering work in chaos and complexity theory. Making Sense of Chaos is the first in his own words, presenting a manifesto for doing economics better.

In a tale of science and ideas, Farmer fuses his profound knowledge with stories from his life. He explains how to harness a scientific revolution to address the economic conundrums facing society. Using big data and ever more powerful computers, we can for the first time apply complex systems science to economic activity, building realistic models of the global economy. The resulting simulations and the emergent behaviour we observe form the cornerstone of complexity economics.

This new science, Farmer shows, will allow us to test ideas and make significantly better economic predictions – and, ultimately, create a better world.

Making Sense of Chaos : A Better Economics for a Better World – J. Doyne Farmer – 9780141981208 – 15,90€

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Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. They built our world, and they will transform our future. They took us from the Dark Ages to the present day.

They power our computers and phones, build our homes and offices, and create life-saving medicines. But most of us take these six crucial materials completely for granted. In Material World, Ed Conway travels the globe to uncover a secret world we rarely see.

As we wrestle with climate change, energy crises and the threat of new global conflict, Conway shows why these substances matter more than ever before, and how the hidden battle to control them will shape our geopolitical future.

Material World : A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future – Ed Conway – 9780753559178 – 15,90€

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An inspirational and compelling collection of stories from XR scientists detailing their personal responses to the climate and ecological crisis and the motivations that led them to work with XR.

With a foreword by Chris Packham. In this important and timely book, scientists from a broad range of disciplines detail their personal responses to climate change. As well as the ecological crises that led them to form Scientists for XR and work tirelessly within it. Whether their inspiration comes from education or activism, family ties or the work environment, the scientists writing here record what drives them.

From biologists to mathematicians, physicists to biochemists, ecologists to zoologists. . .  Each one is on a path to communicate the story behind the irrefutable science that drives them.

Their inspirations are drawn from myriad sources: life-changing walks, inspirational stories of communities coming together, teaching climate change to fifteen-year-olds and deciding not to fly being a few.

This collection adds compelling evidence we can all understand, as they turn science stories into human stories.

Scientists on Survival – Scientists for XR – 9781789297324 – 14.90€

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The world is changing fast. Money is pouring into the green revolution as it sweeps across our globe. This isn’t just economics – it’s Environomics.

Across industries such as energy, food, fashion, technology, manufacturing and finance, businesses are innovating. And governments are taking action; technology is advancing; commercial opportunities are emerging; and our long-formed consumer habits are shifting – sometimes at a dizzying pace. But what exactly is happening, how quickly, who is driving it all – and what does it mean for us?

In this fast-paced and eye-opening book economist Dharshini David follows the course of an average day to tell the real story of the green developments taking place all around us. From the clothing we wear and the food we eat to the way we consume energy.

Full of surprising facts and new perspectives, this book shows that what we do now will affect our everyday lives for decades to come. Economics helps us to understand our world. Environomics is going to shape our future.

Environomics follows the course of an average day to explore the green economic changes, challenges and opportunities that face us all.

If you’ve ever wondered what green issues really mean for your day-to-day life, this book is for you.

Environomics : How the Global Economy is Going Green – Dharshini David – 9781783968473 – 15.90€

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