Earth for Sale. The Fight to Stop the Last Plunder of the Planet.
Reviewed by Jennifer Maveety for Foreword.
Maude Barlow’s compelling book Earth for Sale is about the detrimental commodification of nature at the expense of biodiversity.
Herein, the “commons” is that which all humans use without a price: the air, the oceans, genetics, and the diversity of life. The book addresses multiple threats to these commons, including the displacement of Indigenous people, poverty, and green capitalism and greenwashing (companies making false promises in marketing schemes, indicating that they are being conscious of the environment when they are not). Ways to combat green capitalism and fight for a more equitable future are also named.
Facts combine with storytelling in this engrossing text. In an example showing how Australia’s water crisis was crafted in part by the Australian government’s commodification of the Murray-Darling Basin, the book eases into the topic with a story about a woman watching her family’s cows be taken away because her family farm could no longer afford water. Such anecdotes are persuasive, showing the harsh realities of the commercialization and destruction of nature.
Each chapter focuses on a different topic, though all are joined by the common thread of the environmental harms of capitalism. Subsections highlight the implications of colonization, carbon-trading, and industrial agriculture, offering a multitude of examples to further the book’s claims. Comprehensive critical analyses appear throughout, helping to make complex material accessible.
In total, Earth for Sale is an immersive survey of the destructiveness of green capitalism. In closing with the assertion that inequities across the globe need to be addressed so that people can start working toward a more sustainable future, the book reiterates its previous points with fresh information, as with an exhortation to reject the “financialization” of nature that points to recent initiatives by Greenpeace.
Maude Barlow
ECW Press (May 5, 2026)
Softcover $21.95 (240pp)
978-1-77041-866-0
