HIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: THE BOOK

Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
Observer Book of the Year
New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of the Year

Forget everything you think you know about global warming. The really inconvenient truth is that it’s not about carbon—it’s about capitalism. The convenient truth is that we can seize this existential crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.

In her most provocative book yet, Naomi Klein, author of the global bestsellers The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, tackles the most profound threat humanity has ever faced: the war our economic model is waging against life on earth.

Klein exposes the myths that are clouding the climate debate.

We have been told the market will save us, when in fact the addiction to profit and growth is digging us in deeper every day. We have been told it’s impossible to get off fossil fuels when in fact we know exactly how to do it—it just requires breaking every rule in the “free-market” playbook: reining in corporate power, rebuilding local economies, and reclaiming our democracies.

We have also been told that humanity is too greedy and selfish to rise to this challenge. In fact, all around the world, the fight for the next economy and against reckless extraction is already succeeding in ways both surprising and inspiring.

Climate change, Klein argues, is a civilizational wake-up call, a powerful message delivered in the language of fires, floods, storms, and droughts. Confronting it is no longer about changing the light bulbs. It’s about changing the world—before the world changes so drastically that no one is safe. 

Either we leap—or we sink.

Once a decade, Naomi Klein writes a book that redefines its era. No Logo did so for globalization. The Shock Doctrine changed the way we think about austerity. This Changes Everything is about to upend the debate about the stormy era already upon us.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“A book of such ambition and consequence that it is almost unreviewable … the most momentous and contentious environmental book since “Silent Spring.”

— New York Times Book Review

“Written with an elegant blend of science, statistics, field reports and personal insight, it does not paralyze but buoys the reader. The book’s exploration of climate change from the perspective of how capitalism functions produces fresh insights and its examination of the interconnectedness between our relationship with nature and the creation of better, fairer societies presents a radical proposal. Klein’s urgency and outrage is balanced by meticulous documentation and passionate argument. Heart and mind go hand in hand in this magisterial response to a present crisis.”

— Jury citation: Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction

“Few journalists today take on the big issues as comprehensively and fearlessly as Naomi Klein. She combines rigorous reporting, analysis, history and global scope into a package that not only identifies problems, but also illuminates successful activism and solutions. That goes for her groundbreaking book on climate change and for columns that brilliantly connect the dots – such as the intersection of climate justice and racial justice.”

— Jury citation: The Izzy Award

“This is the best book about climate change in a very long time— reminding us just how much the powers-that-be depend on the power of coal, gas and oil. And that in turn should give us hope, because it means the fight for a just world is the same as the fight for a liveable one.”

— Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and co-founder of 350.org

“An enormous, complex, compelling and, by turns, distressing and rallying analysis of the dysfunctional symbiotic relationships between free-market capitalism, the fossil fuel industry and global warming”

— Booklist Review

“Naomi Klein applies her fine, fierce, and meticulous mind to the greatest, most urgent questions of our times. Her work has changed the terms of the debate. I count her among the most inspirational political thinkers in the world today.”

— Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things and Capitalism: A Ghost Story

“Without a doubt one of the most important books of the decade.”

— Amitav Ghosh, author of The Hungry Tide: A Novel

“A work of startling force, exhaustive reporting, and telling anecdote … makes a muscular case for global warming as the defining, cross-sectional issue of our era.”

— Globe & Mail Review

“Naomi Klein has done for politics what Jared Diamond did for the study of human history. She skillfully blends politics, economics and history and distills out simple and powerful truths with universal applicability.”

— Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Naomi Klein’s “words and knowledge run deep, inspiring change and the need for immediate action.”

— Charlize Theron

“This Changes Everything gets the science right, but it’s about much more than facts and figures. This is a deeply insightful exploration of the ideology and interests that have systematically blocked climate action and have undercut even good faith efforts. Klein gives no one a free pass. A rousing must-read!”

— Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University and author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars