Category: Around the Web

Beyond the Bubble: Imagining a New Canadian Economy
Around the Web

Beyond the Bubble: Imagining a New Canadian Economy

Beyond the Bubble: Imagining a New Canadian Economy
James Laxer, Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2009, 264 pages.

“The neo-liberal system has fallen into pieces and cannot be put together again. Nor should humanity attempt it. It is time to move on to a better future.” These are the last words in James Laxer’s Beyond the Bubble. The rest of the book fills in the details of what amounts to a very interesting read for economists and non-economists alike.

This is a book of many stories. Nominally, it’s about a bubble that popped over the housing market. Laxer could have chosen other bubbles – the dot-com crash, the Great Depression – but they may have offered less rhetorical value today.
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The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet
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The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet

The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet
John Bellamy Foster, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009, 328 pages.

Do you ever suspect that there is something fundamentally wrong with our capitalist society? Have you wondered what advice Karl Marx would give to the modern environmentalist? If so, The Ecological Revolution by John Bellamy Foster may interest you.

A professor of sociology at the University of Oregon at Eugene, Foster begins the book in no uncertain terms, arguing that humans need to revolutionize their relationship with Earth, or else suffer many dangerous consequences. He believes that this revolution must be a socialist one, and uses the bulk of The Ecological Revolution to explain why.

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A Must Read!

GreenBookReviews.ca has recently been featured in the Waterloo Chronicle.

“You don’t need a degree in environmental science to read a “green” book.

There’s a new Waterloo-based website to help you weed through the plethora of green-themed books that vie for space on bookstore and library shelves.

An offshoot of University of Waterloo’s Alternatives journal, Green Book Reviews launched in May, coinciding with the magazine’s annual books issue…”

Read the full article by Charlotte Prong Parkhill. Continue reading A Must Read!

Genius of Common Sense + Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad
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Genius of Common Sense + Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad

Genius of Common Sense
Glenna Lang and Marjory Wunsch
Boston: David R. Godine, 2009, 128 pages

Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad
Frances Moore Lappé
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Small Planet Media, 2007, 208 pages

How do you change the world? Where do you start, locally or globally? For inspiration and a way out of the paralysis that stymies so many of us, two remarkable­ women – Jane Jacobs and Frances Moore Lappé – offer some practical­ ideas.

Jacobs, the late, great thinker, activist and author, is the subject of a new book written for people aged “10 to 100.” It is the story of how Jacobs’ seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, came to be written, and what shaped and influenced her life.

Younger readers will enjoy meeting Jacobs as an inquisitive, fearless child who never lost her propensity to think independently until the day she died in 2006, just a week shy of turning 90. The book’s title, Genius of Common Sense, is not hyperbole. Jacobs’ observations about what makes cities livable ran counter to urban theorists in New York City, where she lived at the time. Lacking a university degree, she wasn’t taken seriously until she began writing articles and making her voice heard in neighbourhood protests.

Augmented with photographs and pencil illustrations, Genius of Common Sense chronicles Jacobs’ life [Click here to read more!] Continue reading Genius of Common Sense + Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad