Ecosocialist Bookshelf II: October 2026

Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus presents five new books on the affordability crisis, petrochemicals, punishing polluters, forever chemicals and the costs of climate change.

Grand Theft Capital: What Workers Should Know About the Affordability Crisis By Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster Monthly Review Press Workers’ current conditions are the result of a deliberate, long-term effort by the corporate rich to increase their own wealth largely by extracting it from workers’ pockets. Successive generations of young workers have been confronting difficult and precarious employment conditions. Workers face is nothing less than a class war waged from above; the only solution is an equally determined class war from below.

Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation By Alice Mah Duke University Press Mah juxtaposes the petrochemical industry’s destructive corporate worldviews with environmental justice struggles in the United States, China, and Europe. She argues that amid intensifying public pressures, a profound planetary industrial transformation is underway that is challenging the reigning age of plastics and fossil fuels.

Rivers On Fire And Corporate Liars: The Monitoring and Sanctioning of U.S. Water Pollution Crimes By Joshua Ozymy and Melissa Jarrell Ozymy How has the United States. government prosecuted environment crimes over four decades? Have the prosecutions actually deterred crime? This analysis provides a comprehensive empirical examination of how the criminal enforcement of water pollution has evolved over time, and how criminals were sanctioned.

Inescapable: Facing Up to Forever Chemicals By Marina Schauffler John Hopkins University Press Invisible and nearly indestructible, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have seeped into everyone’s blood and permeated the natural world. Shauffler shows how individuals and communities have been affected and offers a roadmap for tackling this chemical Hydra.

Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World By R Jisung Park Princeton University Press Drawing on a wealth of new data and cutting-edge economics, Park shows how climate change headlines often miss some of the most important costs. By investigating how climate change interacts with social and economic institutions, he shows how climate change already affects everyone, and may act as an amplifier of inequality.

[Reprinted from Climate and Capitalism. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement.]