Free Gifts

”[A] stimulating treatise… . Battistoni is a rigorous and skilled polemicist; she showcases her original close readings of classic texts without veering too far into the weeds. Her investigation adds up to a fascinating look at how a ‘free’ nature functions, ironically, to restrict human freedom to make ethical and socially responsible decisions… . [An] insightful theoretical approach to the climate crisis.” * Publishers Weekly *“A remarkable, important work of sophisticated Marxist theory informed by spectacularly detailed analysis of our actually-existing capitalist world—and beautifully written at that. It’s about nature but also everything.”—Daniel Denvir“A truly wonderful book… . It’s a very thorough reconstruction of how capitalism operates, generally and in relation to nature… . It’s enormously erudite, incredibly wide-ranging in its readings. It’s written in a lively prose… . . It’s developing, in my view, a very original synthesis of value form analysis and existential philosophy that I haven’t seen before… . [and] it also is very conceptually creative and comes up with concepts that I find very useful… . This is the most important work in ecological Marxism in a very long time.”—Andreas Malm, Historical Materialism“Free Gifts is itself a gift for those in the environmental humanities, political theory, and feminist thought… . [and] a deeply rewarding (and worrying) perspective on our ecological and political situation… . I very much look forward to the life of this book as it enters our midst.”—Jordan Daniels, Spectre“An original contribution… . I have nothing but admiration for the ambition on display in Battistoni’s work. Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature is appropriately a book that is very much alive.”—Matt McManus, Damage“I love this book. It’s a great analysis of one of capitalism’s core assumptions… . Super thought-provoking and wide-ranging.”—Jeffrey Church, The Political Theory Review

Alyssa Battistoni is assistant professor of political science at Barnard College. She is the coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, Boston Review, n+1, Dissent, TheNew Statesman, Jacobin, and New Left Review.