The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism

Published last year by Verso, The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism by Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan is a capacious, well-rounded, but hard-swinging treatment of the debates that have come to define “degrowth.” The book stands as an incredible feat of synthesis for the degrowth movement as a whole, though the authors begin modestly, noting that they wish to “describe” debates (vii) within degrowth and extend these to a wider audience. However, the book does far more than this, not least of which may be glossed in the author's keen sensitivity toward the heightened politicization of the question of transition in radical circles today. Of course, this more intense…