đź“š Books of the Year '25
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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The Limits to Growth
12 min read
The article discusses this 1972 report extensively as 'arguably the most important environmental book of the twentieth century' and the subject of Baker's dissertation. Understanding its computer modeling methodology and controversial predictions about resource depletion provides essential context for modern climate politics.
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Club of Rome
15 min read
Described in the article as the 'shadowy' organization that commissioned The Limits to Growth study. This global think tank's history and influence on environmental policy discourse would illuminate the institutional forces behind early environmental modeling.
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The Dispossessed
10 min read
Ursula Le Guin's 1974 novel is praised in the article as constructing 'a complete and visceral alternative world and political system.' Its exploration of anarchist philosophy through science fiction and its influence on political imagination makes it a rich topic for readers interested in eco-socialist thought.
Welcome to our *final* newsletter of 2025! Today, rather than our usual list of essays the editors of the BREAK—DOWN read over the past few weeks, we have asked some of our favourite writers and contributors to tell us the best books they read this year. It’s a great list, ranging from the late Mike Davis’s opus, Ecology of Fear, to works of sci-fi and essays about the landscape of Essex — it even has an unpublished PhD thesis, stretching the idea of a books of the year list nearly to breaking point.
I wanted here to thank all of our readers, subscribers, listeners and contributors for their support in 2025. We have even bigger plans for 2026, which we will no doubt spam you with in the new year, but we couldn’t have done even a fraction of what we have so far without your support. Thank you!
We’d also love to hear our readers favourite reads (or re-reads!) of the year, so please let us know down in the comments!
Of the nonfiction books I read this year, the one I enjoyed most and learned most from was Edward Fishman’s account of America’s modern “economic warfare” against Iran, Russia and China, Chokepoints (2025, Elliott & Thompson). It’s just a great blend of politics and economics, and incredibly clearly written. What I particularly appreciated is that Fishman uses his access to many of the main characters and indeed his own involvement in the story not to grandstand or showoff – a hugely irritating attribute of books like Kenneth Rogoff’s Our Dollar, Your Problem, which I also had the misfortune to read this year – but solely to provide insight that would otherwise have been hard to offer.
Brett Christophers, a professor at Uppsala University and author of The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet, as well as “Failure as Success” from The BREAK—DOWN Issue #1.
...Nearly a year on from the Los Angeles fires, most debris has been hauled out of the foothill neighborhoods of Altadena, but a campfire smell lingers over the frighteningly empty landscape. Southern California’s tendency towards environmental catastrophe, writes the late Mike Davis in Ecology of Fear (1998), stands apart in kind from the temperate geographies of New England and Europe. In this sequel to City of Quartz, Davis explores LA’s compounding social and ecological
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