100 books like Barbaric Heart

Its central thesis is that the deficiencies and environmental harm of major efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are being ignored, so that the privileged and elite can continue to live in comfort and affluence. The authors present evidence that advocates for alternative energy such as wind and solar greatly overestimate the potential of these sources to replace fossil fuel energy. At the same time, the development of wind and solar power has harmful environmental impacts, including the mining necessary to obtain rare earth minerals, the decimation of wilderness both in the process of obtaining minerals, and widely implementing wind and solar installations. The undue optimism associated with these activities makes it unnecessary for those who are already privileged to consider adopting a much less consumptive lifestyle.

This was the most popular environmental book of its time. It opened many people up to the assault on nature. This book motivated me to become part of the environmental solution. This book changed the unbridled use of chemicals used on the environment. It helped get rid of DDT in the US. It was an introduction for me to environmental awareness in the 1960s and 1970s.

Don’t be dissuaded by the severe title of this compelling and thoroughly readable book. Nor by its publishing date of 1995. Charles Little tells the story of exotic insects and pathogens that have become a pandemic crippling forests all across our country. His message—as timely now as it was then—is so moving and powerful that it inspired me to write a whole book about the plight of our cherished hemlocks and beeches. This volume was a path-breaker in its day and remains so with a message that every forest lover and forest manager needs to hear.  

This book is a series of essays that were originally blogs, written by a retired civil servant. These essays have been arranged not in a chronological sequence but under subject-heads, making them a cohesive commentary on the times we live in, in India, about which the author writes. While not a work of history, the book is instead the shout of a wounded civilisation. These essays will find place in the annals of India’s evolution through the 21st century. Uncompromising in his analysis, the author studiously cites the dark clouds of political, social, and economic failures, that seem to be without the proverbial silver lining. Disclosure: I am the publisher of this book.

I think Treasure Islands may well be the most influential book in tax justice.

Author Nick Shaxson, previously a journalist for the Financial Times and Reuters, became a key member of the Tax Justice Network and wrote this rollicking blockbuster. In a story that spans the globe, Shaxson captures the lurking malevolence of the men – and it is almost always men – who shaped our world so they could profit from selling opportunities for tax abuse and financial crime.

This book describes in fascinating detail several episodes of crony capitalism in contemporary India. The author focuses on the intimate nexus between big business and politics that shapes economic policies and covertly funds elections, often to the detriment of the interests of underprivileged sections of society. Drawing on his experience as an investigative journalist, Josy Joseph delineates corporate rivalries, the activities of shady lobbyists and recounts financial scandals. A riveting read.

The book addresses a dozen key challenges in our collective future.

Though the chapters are uneven in quality, I found that the book had many good ideas on how to address these challenges. The editors encourage broad community consultations regarding our futures, systems analysis of how challenges interact, and policy experimentation.

Maurizzio Lazaratto is a critic of contemporary capitalism. 

His view of the subject finds powerful expression in Making of the Indebted Man, a study that tracks the development of a neo-liberal, or financialized, global economy organized around a new form of exploitation – no longer the extraction of surplus value from industrial labor, but the ever-mounting debt assumed by consumers seeking to maintain their standard of living while wages keep falling. 

The accruing debts serve as an effective means for disciplining the population while at once becoming an immensely lucrative source of profit for banks and other corporations that buy and sell them on the world’s financial markets.

This book is a classic and essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of thinking and practicing of childbirth in the United States. 

More than that, it makes a compelling argument that birth should be seen as an American rite of passage. Through a history of the development of current norms and rituals of childbirth as a medicalized procedure and comparison of that paradigm to more holistic treatments of pregnancy and birth, Davis-Floyd opens the door to thoughtful and sustained attention to the support and options we provide birthing people moving forward.

At a time when businesses are targeting net zero carbon emissions, Net Positive is a rallying cry for leaders to embrace a wider definition of sustainability.

As Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, who I’ve had the privilege of interviewing, and Andrew Winston explain net positive companies improve the lives of everyone they touch, increasing long-term shareholder returns in the process; take ownership of social and environmental impacts their business models create, viewing these as opportunities to innovate; and partner with competitors, civil society and governments to drive transformative change. 

Although some concepts presented in this book were not new to me, the authors’ examples add meaningful perspective. Net Positive affirmed my belief in purpose-led organizations and the power of business to do more.