MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Capitalism and the planet – analysis reqd.
RICHARD MURGATROYD is disappointed by an ambitious survey that fails to get to grips with the relationship between human consciousness and nature
PROFIT BEFORE HUMANITY: Female pigs used for breeding - 'breeding sows' are confined most of their lives in 'gestation crates' which are so small that they cannot even turn around. The pigs' basic needs are denied, and they experience severe physical and psychological disorders
[Farm Sanctuary/flickr/CC] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Living on Earth: Life, Consciousness and The Making of the Natural World
Peter Godfrey-Smith
A CLIMATE emergency, species extinction, habitat destruction... all largely driven by human actions and choices. Why has our impact become so destructive? Logically, consciousness – whether human or animal – plays an important part.
The author begins with fundamentals. He charts the rise of life from the simplest chemical processes 3.8 billion years ago to the present. The emphasis is on the role evolution played within a unified, complex, ever-changing ecosystem. Shifts in climate are decisive, but living creatures also change their environments simply by living. No species in the long history of life on Earth has proved so dynamic as us.
More from this author
RICHARD MURGATROYD welcomes the modern relevance of a history of the expropriation of common lands for private profit
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PAUL DONOVAN applauds a highly important book that appears at a crucial time in the present biodiversity and climate crisis
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