Missive #754 Published 13 Jul 2026

Inventing the Future is a bold new manifesto for life after capitalism. Against the confused understanding of our high-tech world by both the right and the left, this book claims that the emancipatory and future-oriented possibilities of our society can be reclaimed. Instead of running from a complex future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams demand a postcapitaiist economy capable of advancing standards, liberating humanity from work and developing technologies that expand our freedoms.

Missive #751 Published 8 Jul 2026

A consistent theme in positive reviews is the appreciation for Schumacher’s focus on people over goods. Reviewers resonate with the argument that economies should prioritize meaningful work and psychological stability over endless GDP growth. The concept of "intermediate technology"—tools that are efficient yet accessible to small communities—is frequently cited as a standout idea.

Reviewers often discuss Schumacher’s definition of wisdom as the ability to project permanence. The critique that modern economics treats irreplaceable natural capital (like fossil fuels) as income is widely praised as a fundamental truth that mainstream economics still ignores. This section of the book is often described as a "call to restraint" that contrasts sharply with consumerist culture.

Missive #750 Published 7 Jul 2026

This is the first of the authors freestanding books that I have read. It has a legal base for the plot but her Caper Court series was based on her shipping lawyer background. That knowledge does not carry over as well into other sectors of the law. Not a spoiler but the book ends as if the author was going to start another series.

Missive #748 Published 4 Jul 2026

In Regeneration Through Violence , the first of his trilogy on the mythology of the American West, Richard Slotkin shows how the attitudes and traditions that shape American culture evolved from the social and psychological anxieties of European settlers struggling in a strange new world to claim the land and displace the Native Americans. Using the popular literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries-including captivity narratives, the Daniel Boone tales, and the writings of Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Melville-Slotkin traces the full development of this myth.

Missive #746 Published 30 Jun 2026

Imagine it is 2025. Years earlier, in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, a global hi-tech uprising has birthed a post-capitalist world in which work, money, land, digital networks and politics have been truly democratised.

In a thought-experiment of startling originality, world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis offers a glimpse of this alternative reality. Through the eyes of three characters - a libertarian ex-banker, a Marxist-feminist and a maverick technologist - we see the genesis of a world without commercial banks or stock markets, where companies are owned equally by all staff, basic income is guaranteed, global imbalances and climate change cancel each other out, and housing is socialised.