A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things – Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet with Raj Patel
Introduction by Liz Hosken from The Gaia Foundation. Presented in collaboration with 42 Acres Shoreditch
Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives. According to a new book by Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore, these are the seven things that have made our world and that will shape its future.
In Raj’s only London appearance here will show how in making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, and devastated Earth.
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things presents a new approach to analysing 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. Raj proposes a radical new way of understanding-and reclaiming-the planet in the turbulent twenty-first century.
Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist and academic. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and The Value of Nothing.
“Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore have transformed ‘cheapness’ into a brilliant and original lens that helps us understand the most pressing crises of our time, from hyper- exploitation of labor to climate change. They demystify the systemic forces that have gotten us here, showing how our various struggles for justice are connected. As we come together to build a better world, this book could well become a defining framework to broaden and deepen our ambitions.” Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything
“An informed, sometimes acute, polemic against capitalism’s half-millennium of colonial exploitation.” Nature Journal