A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet

by Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore

Overview

Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. In making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, and devastated Earth. In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore present a new approach to analyzing today’s planetary emergencies. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism. At a time of crisis in all seven cheap things, innovative and systemic thinking is urgently required. This book proposes a radical new way of understanding—and reclaiming—the planet in the turbulent twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520299931
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	07/30/2018
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist, and academic. He is Research Professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and Senior Research Associate at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy.
 
Jason W. Moore teaches world history and world-ecology at Binghamton University and is coordinator of the World-Ecology Research Network. He is the author of several books, including Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital, and numerous award-winning essays in environmental history, political economy, and social theory.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Cheap Nature
2. Cheap Money
3. Cheap Work
4. Cheap Care
5. Cheap Food
6. Cheap Energy
7. Cheap Lives
Conclusion

Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Any good dialectical analysis lives or dies by its synthesis, and Patel and Moore’s is spot on. Particularly, the concept of cheap lives stands out as a novel way to tie the important threads of critical thought on capitalism’s history into a coherent tapestry of how it persists, as well as a way to comprehend and resist capitalism in 2017."

Los Angeles Review of Books

A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things is not only essential for understanding how capitalism puts a price on everything but a pleasure to read as well. Despite their considerable scholarly credentials (there are 56 pages of references), they write in a breezy and often witty style. For eco-socialists trying to reach a broader audience, this book should be read as a style guide."

CounterPunch

"Recommended Weekend Reading"

Food Politics

An informed, sometimes acute, polemic against capitalism's half-millennium of colonial exploitation."

Nature

"A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things offers us a powerful . . . critical analysis and a glimpse of what the world might become."

Social Policy Magazine

"A provocative and highly readable guide to the early centuries of capitalism."

Resilience

"Compelling and capacious. . . . At seemingly every turn, Seven Cheap Things gestures to a potentially broader discourse that should embolden readers and scholars to view networks of exchange in new—and even ‘revolutionary’—ways."

CENHS Blog

"Offers a way of imagining, if not completely grasping, what it means to be fully human. The authors help us see what it is to be material in a world of ideas, and to be cultural in a world of matter."

Journal of World History

"Sweeping erudition, and an impressive ability to synthesize disparate elements.

The Guardian

"A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things is a fascinating and informative work that reveals the role economics played in driving our species to the precipice of ecological disaster. . . . This book would be a valuable read for undergraduates, graduate students and scholars, as well as general audiences. Patel and Moore have captured very succinctly how divergent areas of human life have brought us the world we inhabit, and offer a fresh perspective on intersectionality, that encourages readers to think deeply."

Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics

An informed, sometimes acute, polemic against capitalism's half-millennium of colonial exploitation."

Nature Lib

The authors tell the story of economics, people, nature, capitalism, and more as they explore the seven cheap things that have shaped the world we live in: nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives. Narrator Simon Mattacks reads at a fairly fast pace, keeping the information moving but also injecting energy into it. The mix of technical terms, names of people and places, and phrases in various languages don’t slow him down him a bit, and his narration is engaging. The authors discuss why and how each of these things was made “cheap” and also look at ways to understand the world—and the planet’s resources—in the twenty-first century. This mix of economics and ecology presented in Mattacks smooth, calm voice makes for a great listen. E.N. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile