A review by viljesvag
The Progress of This Storm: Nature and Society in a Warming World by Andreas Malm

5.0

Less of Latour, more of Lenin: that is what the warming condition calls for.

I wanted to get back into reading non-fiction after reading pretty much only fiction for a couple of years, so I decided to start 2020 off with digging into this book. The only thing I knew before starting was that it was about climate change and that several of my friends loved it: little did I know that the first parts of the book would be an angry Marxist polemic ripping Bruno Latour and other vapid theorists into shreds?

The focus of the book is obviously climate change, but Malm's angle on the issue here is to first determine what "nature" is and how humans and labour relate to it. Various philosophers and theorists get picked apart along the way, and while I found that a lot of the theories being discussed were incredibly dense (and quite honestly almost nonsensical at times), I can hardly fault Malm for that. His own writing is very clear and direct for such a heavy subject.

If you aren't interested in these philosophical discussions, I would still recommend the introduction and last two chapters, as they are more concrete about looking forward and working on ridding the world of fossil capitalism. But the polemic roast chapters are almost funny at times, if it wasn't for the feeling of dread that comes with reading about liberal idealists filling the climate movement with weak bullshit.

Essential reading during this time of warming, very much recommended.