Capitalism’s addiction to fossil fuels is heating our planet at a pace and scale never before experienced.

Extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels and accelerating feedback loops are a commonplace feature of our lives. The number of environmental refugees is increasing and several island states and low-lying countries are becoming vulnerable. Corporate-induced climate change has set us on an ecocidal path of species extinction. Governments and their international platforms such as the Paris Climate Agreement deliver too little, too late. Most states, including South Africa, continue on their carbon-intensive energy paths, with devastating results. Political leaders across the world are failing to provide systemic solutions to the climate crisis. This is the context in which we must ask ourselves: how can people and class agency change this destructive course of history?

The Climate Crisis investigates ecosocialist alternatives that are emerging. It presents the thinking of leading climate justice activists, campaigners and social movements advancing systemic alternatives and developing bottom-up, just transitions to sustain life. Through a combination of theoretical and empirical work, the authors collectively examine the challenges and opportunities inherent in the current moment.

Most importantly, it explores ways to renew historical socialism with democratic, ecosocialist alternatives to meet current challenges in South Africa and the world.

'We in South Africa have a war going on. Those who have not realised it are foolish.'

These words of Frank Chikane, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, refer to the war that is being waged at present in defence of white minority rule and an iniquitous social system.

All-encompassing, it operates at political, economic and ideological levels, affects every area of society, and impinges on the lives of all South Africans. This book has been written by a number of leading young academics, professionals and activists concerned about the increasing tendency%towards escalating militarisation and reliance on state violence in South Africa in the last decade or so. In their various chapters they describe and analyse the militarisation of their society in all its dimensions and manifestations. It is hoped that the book will not only add to an understanding of the destructive forces at play in South Africa, but encourage the reader to work actively against them.

Although Marx's writings on social transformation figured prominently in the global Left imagination for more than 150 years, by the late 20th century the relevance of Marxism was under question by both the Left (including Marxists) and the Right. Its revival in the second decade of the 21st century is finding new sources of inspiration and creativity from movements that believe that "another world is possible" through democratic, egalitarian, and ecological alternatives to capitalism built by ordinary people. The Marxism of many of these movements is not dogmatic or prescriptive, but open, searching, utopian. It revolves around four primary factors: the importance of democracy for an emancipatory project, the ecological limits of capitalism, the crisis of global capitalism, and the learning of lessons from the failures of Marxist-inspired experiments. This edited book introduces some contemporary approaches to Marxism. It shows how the 21st century has seen enormous creativity from movements that seek to overcome the weaknesses of the past by forging fundamentally new approaches to politics that draw inspiration from Marxism along with many other anticapitalist traditions such as feminism, ecology, anarchism, and indigenous traditions. Featuring leading thinkers from the Left, the book offers provocative ideas on interpreting our current world and will serve as an excellent reference book to introduce a new way of thinking about Marxism to students and scholars in the field.

Writing the Ancestral River is an illuminating and unusual biography of the Kowie River in the Eastern Cape. This tidal river runs through the centre of what used to be called the Zuurveld, a formative meeting ground of different peoples who have shaped our history: Khoikhoi herders, Xhosa pastoralists, Dutch trekboers and British settlers. Their direct descendants continue to live in the area and interact in ways that have been decisively shaped by their shared history. Besides being a social history, this is also a natural history of the river and its catchment area, where dinosaurs once roamed and cycads still grow. As the book shows, the natural world of the Kowie has felt the effects of human settlement, most strikingly through the establishment of a harbour at the mouth of the river in the 19th century and the development of a marina in the late 20th century. Both projects have had a decisive and deleterious impact on the Kowie. By focusing on this `little' river, the book raises larger questions about colonialism, capitalism, `development' and the ecology. In particular it asks us to consider the connections between social and environmental justice and injustice. As the author says, `Around the world people are increasingly reconnecting with nature and justice through rivers. Unlike other bodies of water, such as dams, oceans and lakes, rivers have a destination and we can learn from the strength and certainty with which they travel. I believe this learning is valuable because acknowledging the past, and the intergenerational, racialised privileges, damages and denials it established and perpetuates, is necessary for any shared future.'

In the face of the continuing national tragedy of the inequality, poverty and unemployment which have triggered rising working-class discontent around the country, the ANC announced a 'second phase' of the 'national democratic revolution' to deal with the challenges. Ironically, the ANC post-Mangaung has resolved to preserve the core tenets of the minerals-energy-financial complex that defined racial capitalism - while at the same time ratcheting up the revolutionary rhetoric to keep the working class and marginalised onside. If the 'first phase' was a tragedy of the unmet expectations of the majority, is the 'second phase' likely to be a farce? The chapters in this volume are written by experts in their fields and address issues of politics, power and social class; economy, ecology and labour; public policy and social practice; and South Africa beyond its borders. They examine some of these challenges, and indicate that they are as much about the defective content of policies as their poor implementation. The third volume of the New South African Review continues the series by providing in-depth analyses of the key issues facing the country today.

""The future of the environment, and the destructive impact of unregulated market-led growth on it, has become the defining socio-political issue of the 21st century. This book, by taking a holistic approach to the subject, will attract readers who are interested in the section on the origin, growth and social composition of bird-watching through to those who see capitalism on a suicidal course in its drive to exploit nature for profit.""
--Eddie Webster, director of the Sociology of Work Unit, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

""This is a refreshing, important and timely work: refreshing because of the personal perspective of the author; important because it goes beyond the personal to make a significant statement about current states of affairs in South Africa; timely because its message goes beyond (South) Africa--it is an urgent plea for universal environmental sanity.""
--Dr. Kai Horsthemke, Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

For many people "nature" means wilderness and wild animals. It is experienced indirectly through magazines and television programs or through visiting the highly managed environments of national parks. Nature, however, is not external, separate from the world of people--we live in nature and interact with it daily.

In this book, Jacklyn Cock describes how these intricate and complex interconnections, seen and unseen, are often ignored. Each of the ten chapters examines an aspect of our relationship with nature.

"The War Against Ourselves" compels us to reexamine our relationship with nature, to change our practices and dissolve present binary divisions such as people vs. animals, economic growth vs. environmental protection, "nature" vs. "culture." It demonstrates the need for an inclusive politics which brings together peace, social, and environmental justice activists who believe that another world is both possible and necessary.

"Jacklyn Cock" is professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa) where she has lectured for twenty-five years. She is also an Honorary Research Professor in the Sociology of Work unit (SWOP). She has been involved in the environmental movement since the 1970s.