What's Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis

by Malcolm Harris

A vital guide for collective political action against the climate apocalypse, from bestselling progressive intellectual Malcolm Harris—“a brilliant thinker and writer capable of making the intricacies of economic conditions supremely readable” ( Vulture ).

Climate change is the unifying crisis of our time. But the scale of the problem can be paralyzing, especially when corporations are actively staving off changes that could save the planet but which might threaten their bottom lines. To quote Greta Thunberg, despite very clear science and very real devastation, the adults at the table are still saying “blah blah blah.” Something has to change—but what, and how?

In What's Left, Malcolm Harris cuts through the noise and gets real about our remaining options for saving the world. Just as humans have caused climate change, we hold the power to avert a climate apocalypse, but that will only happen through collective political action. Harris outlines the three strategies—progressive, socialist, and revolutionary—that have any chance of succeeding, while also revealing that none of them can succeed on their own. What's Left shows how we must combine them into a single a meta-strategy, one that will ensure we can move forward together rather than squabbling over potential solutions while the world burns.

Vital and transformative, What's Left confirms Malcolm Harris as next-generation David Graeber or Mike Davis—a historian-activist who shows us where we stand and how we got here, while also blazing a path toward a brighter future.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Audiobook, Climate Change, Social Justice, Politics, Environment

259 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 15, 2025

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand that there are benefits of being exposed to different ways of thinking, but I can't say that makes it any easier to wrap my mind around new ideas, ... and maybe I'm just at a point in my life (and thinking) where it's difficult to accept ... ah, but therein lies the rub ... what exactly is it that my mind can't wrap itself around?

This is pretty dense stuff, and maybe it'll seize the public consciousness, but much as I enjoyed the fact that, while reading it, it made me think and reminded me of lots of things I've studied, ... indeed, as I read, I couldn't help but think about Harari's exceptional offering, Sapiens, ... and, yes, I found myself agreeing with innumerable points, but, ultimately, I was unwilling to buy into the whole. (But, not to belabor the point ... it did make me think and, yes, rethink many of my day-to-day assumptions.)

And, no, this isn't fair, but when it was all said and done, my biggest takeaway is that: if Harris is right about what it will require for us ... our communities and our governments ... and the world ... to not only rise to meet, but actually do what needs to be done to confront the accelerating challenges associated with the climate crisis, then, well, we're doomed. Alas. But that's my take.

I expect it would be easier to sit around and discuss the book rather than to attempt to craft a cohesive review, so I think I'll just suggest that this might be the perfect book for you if you're interested in (at least two of the following three) climate change, economics, and communism, and you've progressed along the climate change doomer curve from Oreskes & Conways' compact (but powerful) The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future to Wallace-Wells' at-this-point-iconic The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming to Boyd's migraine-inducing I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor and, along the way, you found yourself unpersuaded by the more hope-oriented literature ... including, say, Hayhoe's Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, and now you were looking for a counterargument to Hsu's Capitalism and the Environment: A Proposal to Save the Planet, or, even if you agree with Raworth's Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist or Mazzucato's Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, you just don't think they're roadmaps for addressing the challenges ahead.

I bought and read this (very) soon after it hit the bookstore shelves, influenced in part by this NYT review - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/bo... - which, to my mind, accurately describes the book and, in retrospect, probably should have persuaded me not to buy/read it, but ... somehow managed to do exactly the opposite. For context, that review artfully distilled it all down to this: “What’s Left” is painful to read. Not because it is poorly written, or wrongheaded, or inadequately researched — but because its rationalism and its futurism belong to an era, an epoch, a framing that is no longer ours. Of course we may still prefer to discuss bold and sensible solutions. We probably should. But we have to reckon with a present reality that is not just more dangerous, but heading in a worse direction.

As I spend my days waffling between doom and hope, naively (and optimistically?) searching for a path to something better for - not just my kids and students (and former students), but - the next generation and beyond, I can't say I found the answer here. But that doesn't mean I'll stop looking (or reading).

[Kai · Rating 4 out of 5]

super fun book. innovative beyond what the standard-issue 'left book on climate change' has been the past few years. it agnostically investigates the upshot and potential problems 3 strategies -- "marketcraft" (left liberal capital discipline / big green state); "public power" (a kind of worker-forward democratic socialism or left populism); and "communism" (more of an anarchism or indigenous resistance than what many readers might expect). the great benefit of the book is to consider a "metastrategy" wherein these could experiment, reinforce each other, and help develop pathways "through" the crisis. it is a bit reminiscent of the "virtuous cycle" stuff in that first Green New Deal book. i'd love to teach this in a fun way where the class is divided into three groups and we role play it out a bit.

the book cast its audience widely -- Harris easily could have produced an intellectual missive, but instead tried to make a readable intervention. all that said, the truly compelling part for this academic reader was the "metastrategy" part -- but this only comes out in the 30 page conclusion! there's so much more to say on potential contradictions and failures (not to mention holes that the media, the right, counterrevolution, the cops, etc would try to poke in and between the three). granted, that would be a longer book/more complex task, so maybe it's better to think of it as something that we're left to actually figure out IRL in all its messiness. very helpful to think with.

[Andrew Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first, shout out to Kayleigh George with Little, Brown and Company for the ARC. I GROVELED for an ARC of this book because Malcolm Harris is a thinker I deeply admire and I’ve loved all of his books. Where Palo Alto was exhaustively comprehensive, What’s Left is thorough while being digestible for a wider audience which hopefully this finds with this being the issue of our time. Admirably intersectional analysis. Must read!

[millennial outreach]

Read this with my daughter.

I liked the ideas and thinking but unsure if I enjoyed the way it was written. Some parts were overly written and I didn’t like the pop culture references used. But what I’m looking for would have made it much less accessible and slim up the reader base.

Ró was interested in learning about capital flight and capital strike.

[Lisa Konet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have ready many books for over a decade about the very real, urgent crisis of global change and have mixed feelings after reading this book. The book is divided up in chapters dealing with clinate change from the socialist, progressive and revolutionary POVs and further building on what solutions could be from those perspectives. It is the author's POV that all three of those strategies have to come together for action to happen. Whoever is in charge of these decisions for the future of the planet, there defintely needs to be compromise! This part of the book works well.

However, there is a lot of assumption from the author about global change being reduced if these strategies work together at some point. I also feel that I did not learn much new information to what I have already read over the years about this catatrophic issue. From POV, I hope I am long past deceased before the planet gets bad, but it is already happening.

Recommended for those wanting to know more about global climate change.

Thanks to Netgalley, Malcolm Harris, Little Brown & Company for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 4/15/25

[Wendy Liu]

I'll be facilitating an event for this book on 4/20 in Oakland!

[Debbie Notkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because I have belonged for years to the same economic justice book group, I have largely gotten bored with the formulaic books on this topic; they pose a problem in the first half and offer solutions in the second half. The solutions often depend on creating some kind of tectonic culture shift that the author handwaves into being.

This book does have some of that, but less than most, and some refreshing features. Harris starts from the premise that the problem of climate change and preserving a livable environment cannot be addressed without correcting wealth inequity and power imbalance. He then offers three approaches to solutions: market craft, public power, and communism. In the introduction, he's very clear that 1) he thinks we will need elements of all three (so he's not a one-true-way guy). He's also clear that he has a favorite, and has tried to be so fair to the other two that he hopes to disguise it.

Many reviews of this book (including the publisher's own website) call these "progressive, socialist, and revolutionary," which I think is not fair to Harris's care and nuance. In the market craft section, he talks basically about using the levers of capitalism against the current capitalist trends, and is perfectly honest about why and how this is hard and often fails--but also presents some salient successes. In the public power chapter, he certainly offers some socialist examples, while also highlighting projects that are not especially socialist. It is in this section he details an extremely effective-sounding project on the island of Kaua'i that has never succeeded in getting off the ground because of indigenous opposition--and he manages to do that without making either the project planners or the indigenous people into villains. He also goes back in time to the Pacific Northwest fight over deforestation and saving the spotted owl--and once again manages to strongly support the "tree huggers" without patronizing or vilifying the folks whose jobs were at risk.

I found the communist section the most exciting, which makes me think it's the section of his heart. What struck me about it is that he extends communist concepts into the 21st century, relying on Marx but not stopping there. His basic definition is that if you believe in "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs," you're working in a communist framework. Thus, he widens the lens. He also describes communism as a deeply personally challenging worldview, because of the ways it cannot function without thoughtful, complex compassion. And he highlights a good many projects around the world that are getting traction in this framework.

All in all, I found this to be one of the most practical, kind, and intricate ways of thinking about a positive future that I've read in all these years of this book group.

[Scott Would · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book every leftist should read because it will challenge every leftist, whether progressive, Marxist or anarchist.

Malcolm Harris is the least sectarian socialist I know of, and that is on full display here as he works through the three basic left orientations to the planetary crisis we are now staring down. He asks whether we can afford to stick to just one. The challenge for those who disagree with his all hands on deck answer is to explain how our historically unprecedented situation is to be overcome through narrow means in the short time frame we have.

His discussions are informative and peppered with interesting analogies drawn from film and lit. He also has a global knowledge of social movements and utilizes it to provide examples of just the sort of actions we need to take or lend our solidarity to. While good at laying out the three strategies on offer, he has less to say about how they ought to be combined or how to navigate the conflicts between them. I guess that's up to us.

[Zachary Swann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harris has the juice.

this book makes a solid effort at soberly addressing the severity of the climate crisis while still attempting to imagine paths forward for humans as a global people.

so no localism, nationalism, or facism between the covers.

the three lenses the author uses (marketcraft i.e. heavily regulated techno capitalism, public power i.e. socialism, and communism) each tickle the brain and accentuate different challenges and solutions.

the book’s lasting impact on me will be its powerful articulation of how Capital will devour Labor in its aim to squeeze out maximum profit. i knew all of that before, but i know it differently now, hahah….

[Isaac Wade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really wanted to love this book. I thought Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World was legitimately one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read and an analysis of three left-wing policy frameworks to address climate change by the same author should have been the perfect book. The first chapter looking at "Marketcraft" was fantastic but the subsequent chapters on Public Power and Communism, for me, just didn't have the same rigour. It's obviously easier to critique policies that are being enacted at a larger scale (something like EV subsidies) than it is to apply the same level of analysis of for things that have been systematically dismantled in the latter half of the 20th century (publicly owned pumped-storage hydroelectricity) or barred from ever forming and are limited to a handful of smaller-scale examples in what remains of the second world (such as Organopónicos in Cuba).
Still worth a read but adjust expectations.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging, informative and highly accessible. Harris is emphatic in his belief that that liberals, progressives and leftists of all stripes must work together in addressing the climate crisis. He weighs the pros and cons of three approaches: marketcraft, public power and communism. No single approach can stand on its own, and the strength of our united efforts will lie in our diversity of opinions and approaches.

I was reminded of Stephen Markley’s “The Deluge”, a novel which I think did a better job of realistically depicting the problems of leftist in-fighting and deepening fascism. But who says every book on climate change needs to be pessimistic? Harris conveys a sense of hopefulness that will resonate with readers looking for solutions they can implement here and now.

[Susan Tunis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very wonky. I did not find it very accessible.

[Christian Holub · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely essential book that I am now in the process of recommending to everyone I know, just as I did with “Palo Alto.” It’s a much needed antidote to current political discourse: A discussion of what we need that isn’t just limited to elections, and an analysis of left-wing strategy that emphasizes cooperation over competition. A new North Star for me

[Andrin Albrecht · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here’s one of those books that starts of with the grandest ambitions possible—imagine a different future, chart a path towards it, reveal this path to as many people as possible—but ends up making you think primarily about the limits of the book as a political medium in our day and age. I love Harris’s work, don’t get me wrong: “Palo Alto” is one of the most impressive non-fiction books I’ve ever read, and also here he has exactly the right combination of engaging style and detailed research, provocation and measuredness. “What’s Left” is a great deal better—more thoroughly thought through, more daring, more pragmatic, more original—than many other books of this ilk. Sadly, it’s still not enough.
I wonder if this would hit differently if the 2024 US elections had ended with a Democrat victory and a continuation of Joe Biden’s legacy. It is clear that Harris wrote this in a period when liberal policy at the helm of the world’s leading economy was real, progress, however incremental, was being made against many of the great crises of our time, and what was missing was mostly the courage for something slightly more daring. Now, in 2025, with the election having gone the course that it did “What’s Left” almost reads like a work of alternate history. A look at where Joe Biden’s impressive policy achievements could have led, and how they could have gone even further.
This book is mostly interested in three alternative strategies of tackling the global climate crisis from the left: market craft, public power, and communist revolution. Malcom attempts to give each of them equal thought, survey the evidence of their effectiveness and limitations, and show how they could tangibly change our world for the better. The result is rich in interesting details, such as concrete historical examples where each of these strategies has triumphed, but scant in plausibility. Market craft—a green economy transition led by government incentives—lost its most promising paragon in Biden; public power is losing ground against oligarchy rather than showing any achievements to speak of, and as regards a world revolution … Well, we can all dream, but this is also the part where Harris’s otherwise thoroughly researched and reflected assessments felt downright myopic. I, personally, would greatly enjoy living in a more egalitarian society that does not value private property above all else. I also know that I would not propose overthrowing the society we currently have before I hadn’t verified that the majority of my fellow humans would appreciate such a change, too, and that the risk of ensuing chaos tipping into authoritarianism is minimized. Harris does not give these matters any thought. At the end of the day, I share his ideals, and I’d gladly subscribe to any market craft or public power program he proposes, but on this last one, I’d be like: “Please, can we be a bit more realistic before we put this into action?”
Where “What’s Left” is most interesting, ultimately, is in an almost accidental conclusion it draws. As a manual for systemic change, it is too abstract and implausible, and as an attempt to rally the masses, it is too heady, but it provides a surprisingly compelling argument against in-fighting on the left. Harris does outline his three parallel strategies not in order to find the best of the three, but to suggest that they can and should all work in parallel. His proposal is to commit to all possible avenues, and harness their complementary force. In other words: Here’s a radical vision that does not condemn those trying to operate within the framework of capitalism, and an establishment strategy that can think of extremist agitators as allies rather than obstacles. This is the one thing of practical, rather than just intellectual, value I took away from “What’s Left.” What if we were able to conceive of a political left in which moderates and radicals both fulfill a necessary role that benefits the other, rather than becoming each other’s worst enemies? There is something there. There is real potential in this kind of thinking, I believe. I wish Harris had dedicated more of his book to it. As it is, “What’s Left” is a book worth reading first and foremost for its conclusion.

[Twain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charts a liberal, socialist, and anarchist path through the climate crisis.

The liberal path largely relies on marketcraft. Subsidies, fines, tax deductions, a green National Investment Bank, grants, public/private R&D, all tools (besides the NIB) kinda currently at our disposal.

The place the liberal solution (and it’s really more of a progressive solution) kinda falls flat is in the same way Abundance did. One of the constraints for why we should push this through private corporations (and it was a logic advanced by Biden people) was NEPA forces the government through a lot of arduous environmental reporting it doesn’t for the private sector. But it’s just like “ok we’re talking about changing the entire global economy but we have to pursue the path where a bunch of people make a ton of money because of this one administrative rule” and it’s just like buddy if you’re getting tripped up by a regulation you’re probably not going to transform the global economy and save the planet. That should be like the least of your concerns lol. Obviously Malcolm doesn’t prefer this view, but he does a really good job honestly portraying the arguments and reasoning. He provides the strongest cause for progressive liberal reform within the system, instead of providing a weak straw man of the liberal argument and going to town on that. And I really appreciate that.

This was the book that I read after Abundnace (due to that bookstore doing the “rival authors” shelf plus the availability at my library worked out like that) but him going through how permitting reform is not the problem for green energy was sending me considering how Abundance ties basically all of our problems to regulation. The climate and community project report is noticeably absent from Ezra’s analysis. More often then arduous regulation, what often ties down climate projects is the transmission lines to connect them to the grid and where and how to connect them, rather than an abundance of climate regulation.

He then gets into the problems with marketcraft which is that it’s basically “decarbonization in one state” isn’t really feasible and this needs to be a global project. A lot of countries who will be hit worst by climate change did the least to cause it, and have the least money to prepare themselves. The first world has decided to pull up the ladder and close their borders, and if the US deficit spends a green new deal while people in Chad are still keeping themselves warm burning wood, we’re just further enmeshing global inequality, and the brunt of a problem created by the first world will be borne in the third world. Similarly, trade wars with China have hurt our solar panel installation industry, stopped me from buying a BYD.

Then we move to public power; the TVA, public works, labor power, indigenous uprisings, and the way these things sometimes end up in conflict. Gets into the privilege of western labor relative to the rest of the world and unequal exchange and how labor unions sometimes protect their interests in fossil fuels over the public good. also some public works projects that attract indigenous concerns, who have different links and ideas of what taking care of their land means. A much more compelling chapter than the liberal/progressive one.

After that, we’re off to the commune. An up close look at how indigenous movements across the world use non-market methods to produce food and sustain themselves on their land. We get into biodiversity, the movements interests in agro-ecology, and moving to a much more sustainable food system.

Then, we look at the planetary crisis we are facing, and ways these three strategies can (and have to) work together. Identifies pros, cons, shortcomings, obstacles, etc. of each method and really does its best to understand the best version of each argument.

It’s a good book Malcolm is a fantastic writer and it’s far more gracious to liberals than it really has to be

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

In positing scenarios in which different factions of the left can work together, Harris really does illustrate the left's best hope: a broad based coalition united by a few shared values but willing to allow for a variety of strategies to enact those values. The fear that kept sitting in the back of my mind is that it feels like fewer and fewer people actually share those values; I have met climate activists who decry "foreign students" "invading" affordable housing; I have met disaster councilmembers who own homes and oppose their property taxes being used to construct a train that could reduce commuter traffic and carbon emissions, leading to fewer instances of my local climate disaster of choice: wildfires.

So it's not only a matter of "ideological infighting" and us all learning how to get along; there are actual, real differences in the goals of people who hold a few progressive values but not others. And sadly, a lot of people who sit on the disaster councils that we already have are solidly not on the left and are interested in getting what's best for their neighborhood or small community of fairly well to do people accomplished and then saying screw the rest.

This is all tied up in the fact that in the large part people who work, who do not own property, and who otherwise experience material conditions that would lead them towards marketcraft, public power, or (and especially) communist values are not able to get involved in many forms of organized action. City Council meetings take place at 10am on Tuesdays. The disaster council meets during the workday; retirees and people too rich to have to work or who are able to work from home attend, but the people who must go to work do not.

This issue is solvable, of course. We can pressure our electeds to hold meetings outside of business hours. We can provide food or other non-monetary compensation, like childcare, to people who attend after-work meetings so they don't have to worry about making dinner after a long day or finding someone to look after their kids. But I feel that this is an aspect that Harris largely neglects to mention, and it bears mentioning. You can't just "start a disaster council" as a leftist and expect the left to appear; you need to facilitate it.

[Barbara Rhine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This nonfiction assessment about what should be done to meet the Climate Crisis is totally compelling! Written by a young white man (check out his picture--from this 80-year old's perspective he looks about 12), Harris starts from the premise that anyone paying attention, which includes lots and lots of youth world-wide, knows this is an existential crisis that requires great change just for humanity to survive and thrive, at least a bit. Broken into three sections -- marketcraft (the ways capitalism could and does work to improve things); public power (literally, public ownership of the grid); and communism (not the state-down type, but rather informed an incredible tour of writings, primarily of women and indigenous folks, on different ways to live, less selfishly and more linked with each other, that would burden our earthly resources less). Harris includes lists throughout of those who have lost their lives fighting the powers that be, for a more equitable distribution of resources and lifestyles that pulls back from the rapacious capitalism that is destroying the world. The book is not long, and the writing is clear and lucid, though packed with new information, at least for me, which also rendered it challenging. The title refers both to what is left to save, and what does left mean now. Harris's tentative plans for the future involves a triangle of the three categories, with mutual respect paid by each to each. He does not believe this can be resolved without violence, but he does believe, keenly, that the left forces pushing for resolution have to take responsibility for mistakes and make as few of them as possible. I, who focus on fiction, found this nonfiction work one of the most meaningful I have read in years. I learned so much, and emerged with a cautious optimism as to what the future could hold. Can't recommend this volume highly enough!

[Owlish]

"Rather than break the connections in the Oil-Value-Life chain, public power proposes to loosen both sides, to deform the links so they can no longer hold the gate to the future closed. By reducing the value of fossil fuels and providing a basic standard of living for everyone, we can escape from capital's impersonal, inhuman dictates. Instead of production for production's sake, production for our use. Instead of capitalists scurrying within a maze of democratic design, the direct social appropriation of the means of production in the common interest. Publicly owned power stations, yes, but also public control of the power to put society's resources to work." p. 93-94

"Not only do communists ask almost all people to accept the destruction of their way of life, they also want us to actively participate in every part of that destruction. Abolishing capitalism is one thing, but now everyone has to be an agronomist? And go to long meetings? Communism asks a lot of people, especially in the areas of thoughtfulness, cooperation, patience, and self-discipline. These are not temperamental characteristics that the capitalist world has seen fit to incentivize or cultivate." p. 181

"Burning fossil fuels for extractive agriculture destabilizes the climate, which undermines our ability to grow food in the first place. Despite the illusion of fossil fuel freedom, we're spending down a carbon budget we can't see." p. 209

[Toby Crime · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a superb communicator, Harris is well suited for this perspective on potential climate solutions. Breaking policies down into a taxonomy of: market craft; public power; communism, is a useful conceptual move- so much so that I'm keen for high-level strategy discussions within the left to frame themselves within these terms.

Across each section, he gives a strong case for each position, then various tensions contained within them. Throughout this, he plays and pulls at the relationships between them, giving a robust sense of how they may interact and be used in conjunction.

I got on most easily with the Market craft and Public Power sections, where the Communism section slightly contrasted between his sensibilities (as a communiser) and my own. However, even this was well handled enough that it was generative for me to think through, and I'm excited to follow-up with an interview where he's pushed on this.

Perhaps the primary weakness for me was a limited engagement with AES states (not that it's totally avoided), which could've been really constructive. Placing this framework on different AES governments would allow a breakdown between the three categories, which doesn't have to be agreed with to be usefully provocative. I understand that this may have been minimised for the sake of it being a popular press book, and I can live with that if it helped it gain a deserved extra reach. I hope their will be further engagement with Harris on these terms going forward

[Ajk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harris is a very fun and lucid writer, and it's not his fault in any way shape or form that Trump won the 2024 presidency. In the only analogy to Abundance worth noting, this was edited and framed as a way to pave the path for a future of the left that now has much bigger problems on its hands.

That said, I really enjoyed the framing of the book: there are three future paths, and the correct thing to do is All Of Them. It's kinda funny to read a policy book as written by a communist, but Harris is clear-eyed about who is on his side and the risks of the shattering of the left. So in many ways, when he talks about how the fascists will pursue power, the present has proven his point.

It's one of many books I've read recently that made me think "dang, this would've been good when I was in undergrad." And I could see sharing the book around, with its message of solidarity in trying circumstances. Harris does a great job clarifying the stakes as written, and they've only gotten higher.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

An urgent read. Harris looks at the different types of policy approaches for dealing with climate change that can plausibly be considered acceptable to anyone broadly left of center.
Although Harris doesn’t hesitate to make his own preferences clear, he analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of each of these approaches (roughly-liberal/progressive, socialist/social democratic, and communist) in an objective manner. The analyses are thorough, but never dry, since he makes frequent use of literature and film to illustrate the points. He makes the case that all of these approaches have some role to play in forming a just response to climate change, and must necessarily complement each other.
Many books about climate change seem designed to provoke despair in the reader, but in spite of Harris’ clear portrayal of the enormity of the task we have in facing the multiple coming catastrophes, his book does not: the correct solutions are already present, they just need to be fought for.

[George Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off slow, but I got into it more as the book went on (probably because I found marketcraft to be the least interesting strategy). This was fine but not as incredible as Palo Alto - I expected it (and was looking for it) to be more doomer. Honestly none of the three strategies look like they’re going to come to fruition at all, and if that happens, I want to know what’s left at that point. For sure, it would be great to band together and make a difference, but what happens if that fails??

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyment: 4/5
Quality: 5/5

Usually I make the enjoyment rating match the stars, but that felt like a disservice in this case.

Harris is brilliant. This book was an emotional roller coaster, and it was painful to read at times because it engages with reality rather than fantasy. But it did ultimately leave me with some hope. And a course of action.

I particularly appreciate the work it does to highlight areas of complementarity between the three paths and their different idealogical bases. This eases an anxiety I’ve been carrying that is both personal and political.

[Daniel Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting discussion of various ways to address the climate crisis and fascism using socialist, anarchist, and liberal methods in conglomeration. Not sure if I agree with all of the points made or the specific strategies endorsed. But, the necessity of working with people who you disagree with on some things (not totalitarianism) was the overall theme and is something worthy of highlighting - even if I didn't agree with all of the specific strategies recommended.

[Orlando C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lot to digest here. I would say that I'm disappointed that the author didn't discuss the work of the various actual communist states at length especially the USSR. He conflates communalism/anarchism with communism in a way that felt like cherry picking. Regardless, I feel this a good call to action for the formation of disaster councils to organize a sort of "popular front" of left wing factions.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My book of the year and it came out of leftfield (pun intended) for me. I have been on the fence on the climate change subject but this is by far the best elaboration I have come across. I wish there could have been more tangible suggestions to get involved but it is also kind of the point. I shall be recommending this book and pick up Palo Alto next.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ties together many important threads across left responses to the climate crisis globally.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Malcolm write another history book!

[Jonathon Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy, someone really oughta do something about this

[Jim Witkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one wasn’t for me. I think I wanted a practical guide. Instead it was a wandering philosophical treatise. DNF.