100 books like Overshoot

Most environmentalists today believe that wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars represent our path to a sustainable future. In Green Illusions, engineer Ozzie Zehner blows this thesis out of the water.

Green technologies, Zehner explains, require fossil fuels at every step in their production, maintenance, and disposal. But he is not advocating for continuing to use fossil fuels. Rather, Zehner argues that we have a consumption crisis, and that building more industrial products in factories will not solve the issue. He concludes by offering straightforward, common-sense solutions that actually move us in the right direction.

Why do people harm each other and the planet? Why do the rich continue to accumulate more and more wealth, when they already have all they need? When is enough, enough?

Those questions can be answered by social psychologists, environmental economists, historians, and other academics. But Jack D. Forbes’ book is perhaps the best explanation I have ever read. Drawing on the history of the colonization of North America, Forbes (Renape/Lenape) argues that modern civilization is based around “a spiritual sickness with a physical vector.” He calls it the wetiko disease: the desire to consume other beings, with no possibility of satiation. Forbes’ exploration from his indigenous perspective is one of the most important books I’ve ever read.

The importance of this book is less about human diets, and more about the food system itself. Keith explains in great detail that agriculture — the growing of annual monocrops — is the single most destructive activity humans have ever undertaken. Much of the planet’s surface, formerly teeming with wildlife, has now been cleared, drained, plowed, fertilized, and dedicated to one species: humans.

This doesn’t mean all food production is destructive; Keith distinguishes between agriculture and other methods of growing food, like horticulture, wild-tending, and pastoralism. But the conclusion is simple. We’re in overshoot, and agriculture is a big part of the problem.

The first four books on this list provide a grounding in the how and why of environmentalism. Deep Green Resistance is focused purely on what we can do to save the world. 

The book explores the history of environmental and political movements in detail, as well as strategy and tactics. By learning from the past and innovating based on current global politics and economics, the authors argue we can build an effective resistance movement to dismantle the global industrial system that is destroying the planet. The conclusions are controversial, but the importance of these topics cannot be ignored. Anyone who is serious about sustainability should buy this book and read it.

This book is many things: A wonderful ethnography, a tribute to the Mexican and foreign ethnographers who preceded Re Cruz’s in the area, a call to ethnographers for writing creativity, and, glowingly, a show of respect for local people, their agency, and their understandings of the world.

Chan Kom, as Re Cruz reminds us, has been an ethnographic laboratory since the first decades of the 20th century. Re Cruz chose to structure her book following the script of a local play performed by high school students. For anthropology students this is a good example of an engaging ethnography.

For historians of the recent past this is a record of the cultural impact that the emergence of Cancun had on Yucatecan rural life.

How do movements begin? Beckerman looks to history, drawing lessons from a dozen social movements.

In particular, he explores the communications tools (petitions, zines, private chat rooms) that movements have used over the centuries to organize their thinking and plan their actions. Traveling from Manchester to Moscow to Minneapolis, the reader is reminded that our work now is part of a chain of history.

We are not the first, nor will we be the last. But we can learn from the past even as we confront an uncertain future. 

This is a fascinating in-depth account of several case studies of countries that faced a crisis and had to reinvent themselves: Australia, Chile, Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, and the US (I am not mentioning the exact time points to avoid spoilers).

The author puts together a general framework to evaluate the factors that contribute to successful or failing transformations.

For me, as a Russian, this is a very practical guidebook – how should we rebuild Russia after Putin, how should Russia re-emerge as a peaceful and free country; how can we make sure that Russia will never again be what it is now. The book provides many insights on this but, unfortunately, also suggests that success is not guaranteed.

I was fascinated by this book and its colourful stories about the lives of individuals who played a role in the formation of today’s Istanbul. The backdrop is the famous Pera Palace in the centre of Istanbul, the much-loved hotel of the crime writer, Agatha Christie. Much of the book concentrates on the inter-war period. Superbly written, you can almost see and hear the sights and sounds of the alleyways, nightclubs, shops, and restaurants of a now almost forgotten Istanbul.

Describes in depth a brave new world of uncertain constant acceleration and continued change in institutions and social relations.

I like the way Bauman depicts a condensing resonance, a new way of “being in the world.” Specifically, this is an increasing fluidity and fragmentation of social solidarities, where nothing is secure and where everything can be made redundant.

A world that Ulrich Beck, even before the new century, referred to as “the Second Modernity.”

My dear colleague Simon Anholt is the founding father of the idea of the city, region or nation as brand.

He created the Anholt Ipsos Nation Brands Index and the Good Country Index; has written extensively on the subject; and has inspired me throughout my career. In his latest book The Good Country Equation he clearly proves – through the data that he’s collected – that for places to be admired, they have to be admirable.

In other words, places are respected for what they contribute to humanity and the planet, not for their propaganda. This is obviously an important discovery that forces governments and their stakeholders to focus on meaningful strategy, policy and cooperation as opposed to image promotion.

I also enjoyed reading Simon’s book as he shares his personal experiences as a government advisor.