A review by cosmicllama
How Did We Get Into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature by George Monbiot

5.0

Not exactly what I was expecting when I first picked it up, this collection of essays does a great job defining the present situation. It opens up with the question of what is neoliberalism, and spends the rest of the book defining the systems that exist today that make up "neoliberalism". While the essays are grouped together in themes, I felt that they deserved an intro, or maybe an end to each section to tie them all together. They aren't particularly hard to relate to one another, this is probably due more to the organization than anything. The essays are never in chronological order (which was a smart choice), allowing the reader to be surprised by the date mentioned at the end of essay. I found myself saying several times, "wow, this has been going on that long?".

Overall, Monbiot takes on the mammoth task of trying to define in what happens after "the end of history" and delivers a merciless, thought provoking, questioning diatribe of the powers that be, and the systems they have created to lull the public into not caring, or at the very least, make the public completely unaware.