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Reviews Writings

End of an Epoch?

A review of two books about the Anthropocene by Christian Schwägerl and Gaia Vince.

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Reviews Writings

When Promises of Progress Fail Us

A review of two books that grew out of conversations among the friends and collaborators of Ivan Illich: Grassroots Postmodernism by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash, and The Future of Development: A Radical Manifesto by Gustavo Esteva, Salvatore Babones and Philipp Babcicky.

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Reviews Writings

An Outlandish Generosity

As shadows lengthen over our whole way of living, we may once more be in need of the kind of storytelling that stalks truths so monstrous they turn our minds to stone if looked at straight on.

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Reviews Writings

Excavating Buried Assumptions

The radical thought of Ivan Illich speaks more clearly than ever to our times, I argue, in this review of a new selection of his essays.

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Reviews Writings

The Capacity for Second Thoughts: Ivan Illich

From his rise to prominence in the late 1960s to the last conversations with David Cayley, published as The Rivers North of the Future, Ivan Illich sought to uncover the hidden assumptions on which modern industrial societies had been built.