The most recommended books on capitalism

Who picked these books? Meet our 252 experts.

252 authors created a book list connected to capitalism, and here are their favorite capitalism books.
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Book cover of The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth

David Schweickart Author Of After Capitalism

From my list on climate change and seeing it through new eyes.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have a certain degree of scientific expertise deriving from the education leading to my Ph.D. in mathematics and a deep interest in ethical issues, which led to my pursuing a second Ph.D. in philosophy. I am passionate about the issue of climate change, because (among other reasons) I have four grandchildren who will be living in the new world that is being created now. As I often said to my students during my last few years of teaching, “You are living at the time when the most momentous event in human history is unfolding. Historians of the future—if there are any remaining—will write extensively about this period, about what happened and why, about what those of us alive today did or did not do.”

David's book list on climate change and seeing it through new eyes

David Schweickart Why did David love this book?

I was drawn to this powerful, contemporary, Marxian analysis, which fits so well with After Capitalism. It opens with a section on “Capitalism and Unsustainable Development,” followed by “Ecological Paradoxes,” then “Dialectical Ecology,” (which includes evidence of Marx’s own concern with what we now call “ecology”). It concludes with “Ways Out.” It’s a long read, but well worth the effort.

By Richard York, Brett Clark, John Bellamy Foster

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ecological Rift as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Humanity in the twenty-first century is facing what might be described as its ultimate environmental catastrophe: the destruction of the climate that has nurtured human civilization and with it the basis of life on earth as we know it. All ecosystems on the planet are now in decline. Enormous rifts have been driven through the delicate fabric of the biosphere. The economy and the earth are headed for a fateful collision—if we don’t alter course.
In The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both…


Book cover of The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy

Shimon Edelman Author Of Life, Death, and Other Inconvenient Truths: A Realist's View of the Human Condition

From my list on the human condition and exploring it from different angles.

Why am I passionate about this?

In a sense, I have been working on the material for my book, Life, Death, and Other Inconvenient Truths, for my entire life. The 38 short chapters that comprise it span a range of topics: alphabetically, from ambition and anxiety, through love and mathematics, to war and youth. For whatever it is worth, I have had first-hand experience (in three languages, on three continents) learning, researching, teaching, enjoying, suffering, and fighting — in other words, living — all but one of them (the exception is one that technically cannot be lived through, but can still be pondered and written about). My five recommendations reflect this life-long interest in the human condition, which I am excited to share with you.

Shimon's book list on the human condition and exploring it from different angles

Shimon Edelman Why did Shimon love this book?

A better world is possible — just not through the kind of progress touted by liberal politicians. In this 1982 collection, Bookchin sketches such a new world, based on his concept of social ecology — a prescient integration of the people’s desires for a better life, for personal freedom, and for coexistence, mutual aid, and respect.

By Murray Bookchin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ecology of Freedom as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“The very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human.” With this succinct formulation, Murray Bookchin launches his most ambitious work, The Ecology of Freedom. An engaging and extremely readable book of breathtaking scope, its inspired synthesis of ecology, anthropology and political theory traces our conflicting legacies of hierarchy and freedom from the first emergence of human culture to today’s globalized capitalism, constantly pointing the way to a sane, sustainable ecological future.

Murray Bookchin, cofounder of the Institute for Social Ecology, has been an active voice in the ecology and…


Book cover of The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth
Book cover of The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy

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