Reviews and Comments

Half-Earth Socialism is bracketed by two pieces of, I don't know, science fiction, describing a mid-century earth that's a geoengineering dystopia, and then a half-earth socialist utopia. In between is a lot of really thought-provoking material about topics such as BECCS, nuclear power, and other forms of half-earth rewilding, together with a discussion of neoliberalism and the socialist calculation problem. There's some really interesting, if a little mind-bending, description of how society could function without money. Ultimately, though, I'm not sure I'm convinced by the model they describe, nor by the way we might get there and, can I confess, I wasn't thrilled at the mention of dormitories in the future utopia?

The first third or so of the book has a chapter per party, which was really helpful to fill in the gaps in my understanding. TBH, I knew the history of the FPÖ was bad, but Oh. My. God. The remainder of the book is thematic, with chapters on topics such as gender, climate, migration, and Russia. Interesting (and alarming) how many similarities there are, though also differences, especially over Russia. The concluding section of the book is probably the weakest, as it ties everything in with the EU, and it's not clear to me that that's the key problem here.

I suspect this is another book that I need to re-read in the near future to really get the most out of. Lots of good stuff about masking and unmasking, the mental consequences therein, the implications for friendships and relationships, and a good nod in the direction of the social constructs that make masking necessary and may make unmasking really difficult.

So first up, I have to say that I love, love, love Katharina Nocun's podcast, and that's why I read her book. As I was reading it, though, I realised that I've enjoyed her more recent episodes on conspiracists much more than the earlier ones on data and privacy. While her opening chapter on video surveillance in a sauna changing room (yes, really) is astonishingly grim, I found it hard to be so exercised about targetted advertising or Facebook's data hoarding as those seem more avoidable, at some social cost. The book picked up for me as she pivoted to talking about Facebook's manipulative techniques, including political manipulation, and the state's surveillance, and the chapter on her visits to C3 in Leipzig and a nerd camp in the Netherlands was great. All in all, well written, but perhaps not quite what I was really looking for.

Asking for a friend, of course...

While neoliberalism can be seen as a reconfiguration of the state to suit the purposes of business, that's not the main focus of 'Self'. Instead, Ward focuses on the way neoliberalism reconfigures the self into a competitive, autonomous individual, eschewing solidarity and collective action. As a Soto Zen practitioner, she draws the contrast between the two approaches to life, and comments on how a mindfulness stripped of its collective, ethical components (sometimes called 'McMindfulness') offers a band-aid to the hurt souls of neoliberalism.

To conclude, I don't often read books twice, but this is going straight back onto the TBR list as it definitely feels like it needs another go for me to really get everything out of it.

For a brief summary of the book, see this article in the Irish Times: www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/dr-eil%C3%ADs-ward-where-the-self-meets-political-economy-1.4757189

So... it's not that I didn't enjoy reading this, but it felt like it didn't know where it was going, nor the pace it wanted to use to get there. There were hints of a murder mystery at the beginning, that just seemed to peter out, and then magic, and something a bit like PTSD, and then the last chapter was a whirlwind.

I should probably just accept that I'm never finishing Tintenherz. It's actually a really charming book, with likeable characters and a quite page-turning plot, and I can see why my eldest devoured Inkheart and the two sequels. Still, having read Smarte Grüne Welt in three weeks, it's become obvious that I should probably stick to non-fiction for the foreseeable future :)

I realize it's a bit risky reviewing a book written in a language that I'm still very much just learning, but I'm just going to blunder ahead anyway. There's actually some really good stuff in here, but also some stuff that seems worryingly techno-utopian (such as the commentary on blockchain or self-driving cars). Still glad I read it, and I was quite moved by the latter parts of the book, but it still feels like not all it could be.

So much here, from critiques of Enlightenment thinkers through the waves of colonialism and slavery through to the racism of modern British politics (including an eye-watering quote from Thatcher that I'd never heard before) and Brexit. Particularly thought-provoking on the way post-war social democracy was still built on exploitation of the Global South, and that different configurations of a green new deal run the risk of reproducing that.

While the book goes into particular detail about British colonialism, there's a section on German colonialism that reminded me of this podcast that I just discovered recently: www.rosalux.de/rosalux-history the first episode of which is about "Der deutsche Kolonialismus"