Full Circle: A Search for the World That Comes Next

by Scott Ludlam

A visionary book for our wild times. Scott Ludlam draws on his experience as a senator and activist to capture our world on a precipice and explore what comes next.

One way or another, we are headed for radical change. We are now in the Anthropocene – humans are changing the earth’s climate irreversibly, and political, human and natural systems are on the cusp of collapse. Ludlam shines a light on the bankruptcy of the financial and political systems that have led us here: systems based on the exploitation of the earth’s resources, and 99 per cent of the world’s population labouring for the wealth of 1 per cent.

In Full Circle, Ludlam seeks old and new ways to make our systems humane, regenerative and more in tune with nature. He travels the globe to see what happens when ordinary people stand up to corporations and tyrants. He takes the reader on a journey through time to discover the underlying patterns of life. And he finds that we are at a unique moment when billions of tiny actions by individuals and small groups are coalescing into one great movement that could transform history.

Bringing together a wealth of new ideas, Full Circle outlines a new ecological politics.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, History, Environment

368 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2021

Reviews

[blaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging debut book by activist and former Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam. Part travelogue, part environmental history, part political economy and part autobiography, Ludlam deftly weaves these strands together into a very readable account of where we are with our climate, how we got here, and what economics and politics have to do with it. His outline of political economy is particularly impressive in its accessibility. Ludlam also shows what we can do to get out of this situation, outlining a hopeful call to activism big and small.

His prose style is a bit hit or miss though. At times it was great and felt he had a strong sense of authorial voice, but other times his writing felt like a Tweet thread or reddit comment, which was incredibly jarring. Nonetheless, this was an incredibly accessible book on some very complex topics, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to people interested in climate, particularly those who aren't sure what capitalism has to do with it all.

[Alex Shly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wow. Not only is this a fantastic rallying call during a pretty depressing climate emergency, but Scott somehow manages to combine the history of life on Earth with travel stories, activism and societal musings. It’s as holistic a treatment of our existential crisis as you can get and all served with delicious dollops of chucklingly dark humour.

I already held Scott in high regard as a politician but now I have a new level of respect for him as a creative, passionate and witty human being. He gives hope that people like him around the world are gathering momentum, striving for the tipping points. Maybe we got this. Find the others.

[Stringy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just what I needed. A wide-ranging and thoughtful take on what we can do in the face of climate change when governments are full of fossil fools.

[Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading. 3 or 4 books in one , a history of all of us and everything, a cry for help for the planet and a possible pathway out.

[Joshua Basford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, what can I say about this flaming masterpiece?!?

Okay, let's begin with the writing. The incredible, extraordinary writing. Scott, an ex-Greens senator for WA is also, it turns out, perhaps the most exquisite Australian writer I've ever had the pleasure of reading. From the very first page where he chronicles his heart-in-the-mouth escape from the maw of the recent bushfires, you will be struck by his writing. It is vivid, articulate and alive.

Secondly, this book has scope. And I mean scope. I'm talking Sapiens, but better. Described as part paleo history on the cover prepare to start this journey immersed in the experience of a floating ameoba 400 million years ago. The novel also traverses the history of global capitalism, and Scott delivers, with searingly forensic clarity, (that is at times depressing), a roaring indictment of the global forces that both attempt to bind, and to blind us. As if that wasn't enough, it is also part diary, giving us a sense of Scott's history as an activist, along with the aforementioned rending journal entries charting his experience at the pointy end of a hellscape.

Despite all this, the book is ultimately searching for hope, and never becomes so depressing, or so scientific that it turns into a slog. Quite the contrary, it is a masterfully written, activating read that reminded me just what we are up against, but also what positive, cascading change may look like in a world that is nearly out of time.

Five stars.

[Natasha Hurley-Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really wonderful meditation on the history of life on Earth, interspersed with a travelogue spanning the pockets of environmental activism that might keep it going, despite what we've done to it. Absolutely clear-eyed about our problem being that every single part of our lives depends on a system of limitless growth. Perhaps a little more hopeful than I am about the solutions, but I will gladly work toward a future of walkable green cities full of families cycling and people working less and caring more. We need folks like Scott who can not only imagine a better world, but who inspire us to try to create it.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is perhaps the most important book you can read this year and it begins with a great quote from Alice Walker: "The most important way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." Mr Ludlam was a Senator in the Australian upper house from 2008 through 2018 and served as the deputy leader of the Green Party. In a unique way, Mr Ludlam uses comparisons of the evolution of life on Earth to the evolution of cities/states/countries and to the economic development through the centuries. In discussing an outer suburb or Perth, he points out that "the street is an artifact of human drafting and engineering, informed by ten thousand years of custom and practice." He points out that the metabolic rate of an adult human at rest is about 90 watts. He goes on to point out though that the average power usage needed to run the needs in a modern technological city is 11,000 watts per person. He goes on to explain how the finance system works in a clear and precise manner. An example is simple home ownership. You get to sign a piece of paper here, here and here and again here and here, and you get to keep the pen. You now get money you never see, turned over to the bank for the house. You then pay monthly installments plus to pay back the loan plus interest payments. Over 30 years you have paid the bank at least double the money you borrowed. You have the house which may or may not have gone up in value, but the bank has doubled its money or more. He points out that it was the first female US cabinet secretary, Francis Perkins, as Secretary of Labor, that designed and brought in many of Roosevelt's New Deal policies: from unemployment insurance, Social Security, maternal and child health programs, the Fair Labor Standards Act and more. About the only policy she couldn't accomplish was a universal health insurance program, which was killed by the American Medical Association, powerful even then in the 1930's. Towards the end of WWII, the political leaders gathered at Bretton Woods devised the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, with the US dollar to be the World's currency for trade as well as other agreements to for legal DNA coding to allow banks to accelate the doubling of their money. He shows how this is the root cause the accelerating of climate change. The 'oil' shock of the 1970's allowed a small group of economists and politicians to formulate a plan called the Mont Pelerin Society, to push through more policies to again accelerate the coin-doubling of the banks and super rich: 'needed' austerity measures such as eroding social welfare programs, attacking organized labor, creating 'free-trade' zones, relocating manufacturing (and their jobs) offshore, public assests sold 0ff, neo-colonialism for developing counties in the form of IMF loans as permanent entrapment that can never be paid off and more. He names some of those responsible: Thatcher, Reagan, Trudeau, Mulroney, Hawke and Keating. Periodic crashes are built in as pressure valves to allow further eroding of the same. Later Mr Ludlam brings up the report of 1966 from Bituminous Coals Research Inc: "If the future rate of increase continues as it is at the present...the temperature of the earth's atmosphere will increase and ...and vast changes in the climates of the earth will result." The oil men at Exxon knew as well with climate models in the late 1970's forecast 'dramatic climate changes' with the next 75 years. The followed with a 10 year program that produced accurate predictions of what would happen if we continued burning oil and gas. Exxon shut down this program and have been trying to hide the results and running mid-information campaigns ever since. It is not all doom and gloom though as he recounts meetings of what people are doing to organize better societies in Kenya, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Bangladesh, India and many other countries. Highly recommended.

[Trenton Hoare · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heavy read but it is pure Ludlam. I met the man during 2022 for an election campaign and it was the first time I heard of the term “state capture.” Full Circle describes state capture from all different angles and how societies have evolved to disengage from the norm.

Take your time reading this one and allow yourself to be open.

Thank you Scott.

[Alex Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. A super-ambitious review of the state of the world (primarily through an Australian lens, but lots of reference to other countries) as we plunge deeper into the Anthropocene. He has an amazing ability to go from small personal details to illustrate global trends and patterns, but really takes a complex systems approach to explaining how hypercapitalism, neoliberalism, the growth paradigm, state capture are all interwoven and locking us into an apparently hopeless doom spiral. The kind of thing that wakes me up at 5am, I don't really need any more of this, I'm sold already and on the verge of despair as it is. But Ludlam really does put his money where his mouth is - he is not just preaching to the converted, or hoping to convert more to a doomsday cult - he is one of the most hands-on people I know in getting out there and fighting against it. He tried the political road, and ended up a Greens senator, before ignominiously losing his seat as one of the many tripped up by dual-citizenship rules. But he has always been an activist, and the last part of the book calls for direct action as the last and only hope for us to achieve meaningful change in the face of climate change and the other ongoing catastrophes of the Anthropocene. It made me look at my own road ahead - and I think its changed my view on what I need to do / how I can help effect change. Not many books do that.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Combining palaeontology with political economy with systems theory amidst a dystopian travelogue, this is not a relaxing read but a rewarding one. Ludlam uses vivid language and an informal tone to build up a library of visual metaphors for the many concepts he keeps in play - the landscape sometimes feels a bit cluttered with coins and chessboards and micro-organisms and bushfires, but each serves as shorthand for a complex topic and help to weave together the book's many ideas and themes. (Though I'm not sure the Overton window needed to be smashed quite so many times.) I especially enjoyed the game of Monopoly between various historical characters and the lovingly detailed retellings of life's earliest stages.

[Mary-Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Visual and visionary

A beautiful and important book. Biography, history, science, economics and culture all fold together to tell the vital story of our planet's past, present and potential future. Intensely visual and visionary. We all need to learn from this book.

[Nicholas D'Alonzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full circle is not a book for everyone, but it is a book for me. Perhaps this is because like the author I have spent most of my life in a quiet house on a quiet street on unceded Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar. The devastating bushfires of 2019/2020 summer inspired the author to write the book was the catalyst that pushed me into environmental activism and that shared anger and frustration resonates with me.

The book opens with a very imaginative description of what it takes to make life in suburbia in a developed nation possible. If you struggle to imagine slightly abstract concepts then this isn’t a book for you. Scott likes to turn what might be just numbers on a page into cinematic visions. This part was almost like someone pulling out how I see the world and putting it on the page. And then you hit the second chapter… Suddenly we are on the ground with environmental and political actors looking to protect their homes from “progress”, the very sources of the resources needed to make suburban life possible. This flip from the philosophical and theoretical to the personal and political is the engine of the book and by the end, the flip can happen from sentence to sentence rather than chapter to chapter.

The middle explores the frustration in the lack of action on climate change or other environmental questions. About how people and their politicians have been separated and corrupted by money and the gears of capitalism. Once again, we are given numbers, then cinematic descriptions of webs of networks and then back down to the personal struggles of people on the ground. We then turn to theories of change, of climate change and of political change. The interconnectedness is not just limited to international capital but it is also true for those that live under it. The book is, fractal, self-same on different levels and different topics and relationships of people. We are made to feel that, like any good piece of art.

Then finally we get to the subtitle of the book, the search for what comes next. The book doesn’t let up from discussing green philosophy, socialism, and anarchism. This may lose some readers, those who don’t already agree, or close to agreeing. We get to hard topics like degrowth, how we live with instead of over nature, and changes in lifestyles.

Overall, this is a book for people that already agree, but perhaps lack the words or deep philosophical thought or the big picture vision to communicate it to others. Perhaps you come to it looking for hope, that things can be beaten and we can win. The book is endlessly hopeful and optimistic despite its anger. Perhaps you want to know you aren’t alone in your anger and frustration over your own personal environmental protection fight. This book supports that. It's for deep thinkers and dreamers.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading this then put it down for a long time because it starts with several threads that are woven together rather loosely at first and I didn't have the patience. However, I picked it up again because it is well written. As a biologist I especially liked the chapters devoted to an account of the evolution of life on earth up to the present. In fact when I picked it up again I just sought out those chapters and read them in sequence. Then went back and read the rest.

"The rest" consists of a few chapters (mainly toward the start) reeling off statistics about unsustainable use of resources and pollution and so on; and then a series of vignettes from Ludlam's career in activism and politics - increasingly, toward the end, travelling around the world to various Greens parties and likeminded activists and seeing their struggles. This itself is a bit superficial, as most accounts of such activist tourism tend to be, but there are a few interesting "lessons" drawn out of it and certainly an opportunity to learn about some other places and people.

I particularly liked Ludlam's condemnation of populationist views. Not only because I agree but he relates it empathetically to some of the other people he meets on his travels - which of them are the "surplus" population, because surely the old, white first world men who go on about population don't mean themselves...

As a snapshot of the crazy dangerous place the world's at right now this book is pretty good (notwithstanding the chaotic narrative technique). My main annoyance in the end is that the cherrypicked examples of organising theory, pop psychology etc that Ludlam musters to support his conclusions are just that. It's not the most rigorous in-depth book of theory, but it's worth a read.

[Brendan Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't really have any preconceptions about what to expect from Scott's writing, but I sure as hell didn't expect anything so poetic. I just know him as an activist and senator who (from what I saw) kept his principles. I knew he's an intelligent and well spoken chap who isn't afraid to speak truth to power, but didn't know how that'd translate into a book, nor what the content of the book might precisely be.

I still don't quite know what it was, though that's not a criticism; the quote from Raj Patel on the cover is spot on, "[...] at once a comic chronicle of the climate apocalypse, a heartbreaking work of paleohistory, a fugitive tourist diary, strange, uncategorisable and magnificent."

Enjoyable, informative, and at once both heart-breaking and inspiring.

[Ben Lever · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really insightful look at the way the world is - the wide array of forces that have converged to bring us the climate crisis (as well as a number of other crises of social justice), how they work, and how we might start dismantling them. The book is incredibly wide-ranging - it's a history of the whole planet, the evolutionary history of life, the human history of colonialism and capitalism, and the personal history of Ludlam's life as an activist.

Some of this felt a little indulgent - interesting as it is, I could have done with less on the evolutionary history of life on the planet, in favour of a more in-depth exploration of what might constitute "the world that comes next". But overall, a very worthwhile read.

[Jim McCool · Rating 5 out of 5]

After an excellent step-by-step breakdown of why we we are in this awful mess of species extinction and climate crisis, Ludlam then provides optimistic pointers towards a more positive future through people power and systems thinking... Precisely what we need at this critical point in time. Brilliant writing, buttressed by solid evidence, and lightened by some very welcome humour. Definitely the best book I've read so far this year.

[Claire Baxter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested to read this book after hearing the author talking about state capture on a podcast. Unfortunately I don't think the book lived up to its message. A lot of jargon and poetic language. Could really have done with a plain language edit to make it more accessible, cut down on some of the many adjectives and ensure the key messages came through really clearly.

[Holstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most important books I've read this year. There are some big ideas in here and there are actions of all shapes and sizes presented. Think about what's important to you and get out into the village square.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dense but inspiring read, ranging across political and economic theory, history, palaeontology and activism, a tapestry of ideas! A book for anyone with an interest in the state of the planet.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't love this enough. The energy, intelligence and feeling combined with the gorgeous writing and humour make this such a great read

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and though depressing in parts, full of ideas about a different type of future ...

[Jules Farrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

[Nathalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful book

[Gabriel Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two of my favourite things in one book; Australian left wing political ideas and palaeontology

[Ange Rakocevic · Rating 5 out of 5]

"humble trash of the Anthropocene, make your move."

[Adrian Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important work of politics and environment, tied together with ancient evolutionary narrative.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

An astonishing luminous book.