I’m looking for the popular science books that are adequate from the Marxist point of view or don’t go in that field at all. Like, “Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind” is recommended everywhere, but I think someone here on lemmygrad wrote that it has questionable moments. I read in English and Russian. Any kind of science will do. Thanks!
What kind of topics are you looking for?
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything is good. I read it before I knew anything about Marxism, so I’m unsure of any anti communist messages. At Home is good, too.
Anything by JBS Haldane will be good. I enjoyed What I Require from Life. Some of his stuff is on Marxists.org.
[Edit: I forgot Isaac Asimov. His writing if great. Quite easy to read. And he wrote a book on just about everything (I think he wrote at least one book in every category of the Dewey Decimal System).]
If you’re looking for climate related stuff, you could try one of John Bellamy Foster’s books. Some are difficult—very academic. But he’s written one or two books for a public audience. Maybe with co-authors.
There’s also Naomi Klein, who is kind of Marxist (my guess is a Marxist who doesn’t want to alienate her publisher and Western audience). Try This Changes Everything. Note that it’s not the newest book and some of it will seem very obvious today, especially to those who accept that humans are responsible for climate change. But it is a decent book and you’ll see some Marxist themes very early on. IIRC the transformation of quantity into quality is introduced in the first few pages.
Andreas Malm is another Marxist who looks at climate. Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century is a good read, and it’s short. His Fossil Capital is good, too, but it’s a bit heavier-going.
If you count maths as science, you can’t go wrong with Mathematics for the Million by Lancelot Hogben. He’s written on loads of topics. The Loom of Language looks good (I’ve only skimmed it so far). It’s a popular account if linguistics and language learning.
I’ll also add that almost every author comes with their problems. On the one hand, I try to read authors I disagree with. On the other hand, I can’t avoid them! Even ‘Marxists’ can write things that can be infuriating.
If you’re interested in science, I’d recommend that you read books on topics that you’re interested in, almost regardless of the author. While reading, be critical but enjoy the good bits. Plus, if everyone is reading Sapiens and you’ve read it, too, and spotted the questionable elements, you can have really interesting discussions with others who have read the book. You’ll be able to challenge the problematic bits and propagandise without ‘bringing up politics all the time’ (which for some reason people say to me – how rude).
The more familiar you become with science (or any subject), the easier it will be to read the more academic texts (including those written by Marxists) and this will give you access to books with fewer ‘questionable moments’ (I know how tedious those books can be!).
I’m mostly interested in genetics and biology, but curious about other fields too, so thank you for the range of books listed!
I think you’ll get on with Haldane, then.
There’s always David Attenborough and Jane Goodall, too. They’ve both flirted with anti-capitalism in the past (I’m unsure whether this comes through in their work).
Paul Burkett writes about Marxism and the environment. He writes similar books as, and has co-written with, John Bellamy Foster. Both are worth reading, but I’m not sure if I’d say they wrote ‘popular science’ (in general, that is – they might have a book or two each that is more like poplar science rather than ‘Marxist approaches to science’, which is what I’ve come across). You might just want to try some and see what it’s like – you can always come back later if they’re not what you’re after right now.
A book that tangentially covers ‘nature’ (not necessarily as would a biologist or geneticist) is Raj Patel and Jason W Moore, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. (Even if you just read the chapter on nature – although, it is an engaging read, so you might continue after that taster.)
A word of warning – many of the authors I’ve suggested write about climate change and it can get depressing reading one such book after the next. The remedy is to read about China’s reforestation efforts and Cuba’s carbon neutrality in between 🌳🌲🏞️
What makes a laymen science book popular is it being diluted enough to appease a wide range of demographics. Thus it will inevitably be filled with oversimplifications. And the more popular the less “adequate from the Marxist point of view” it is.
Nevertheless, the closest thing I can recommend to your liking is David Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. I didn’t read it, though Graeber is an anarchist (close enough) and the book was released fairly recently so it will contain fresh data and studies.
I agree with this but I think simple books can be good. It’s the ones that throw in anti communist rhetoric that I get frustrated with.
Like:
Rain clouds are grey and ominous, reminiscent of Stalin.
Thanks, I will check this out.
I haven’t read any science books except two.
“Not in Our Genes” by Lewontin et al was very good. It is a bit old but wise beyond its years on the topic of how the mainstream foray into genetics was often a cudgel to reinforce classist, racist, etc. biological determinist ideas.
Then there was a book related to covid that was published by Monthly Review. It helped open my eyes about how factory farming of animals creates conditions that are conducive to the evolution of deadly pathogens. But it was just a collection of related essays that had a common theme but were not converging towards a specific point so I didn’t find it memorable. The writing was pretty dramatic (not in a good way). As such I can’t recall the book’s title.
Pop science books are usually oversimplified to the point of being useless. Sapiens is warm trash juice for example.
Edit: I have also read The Selfish Gene by Dick Dawkins. Its hypothesis is that the gene is the basic unit of natural selection is IMO very interesting. I wonder if it has influenced natural sciences in some way but I don’t know how to check that. The book is also historic for coining the term “meme”.
Thank you! Sounds interesting
The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
Thank you!
You’re welcome.
spoiler
I apologise for the nit-pick, but you misspelled “thank”
Might not be what you’re looking for, but Robert Cialdini - the psychology of persuasion is one of the best non-marxist science-related books.
Whether it counts as “pop science” is up for debate, but its easily readable by anyone without a psychology degree, and it became really popular as a result.
I think I’ve heard about him, thank you!
Black Holes & Time Warps by Kip Thorn. Also Gödel, Escher, Bach. Neither is particularly Marxist but both are interesting.
Though really, really old Caudwell’s Crisis in Physics is interesting 1930s physics from a ML lens, also touches on a lot of philosophical concepts. If you’re into philosophy, Marxism or poetry you may find him interesting. JB Foster’s Marx’s Ecology and his book Critique on Intelligent Design are Marxist approaches to ecology and biology respectively. Anything by Stephen Jay Gould as well for the interplay of sociology and biology, I personally like his The Mismeasure of Man (get the latest edition) since it serves as one route to take down of The Bell Curve and similar lines of thought.
Damasio is interesting for pop neuro sci but he’s a standard lib, I’d highly recommend his Descartes’ Error and Searching for Spinoza though, I absolutely would not recommend in good faith Self Comes to Mind since it’s poorly edited. Oliver Sacks comes off as a neuro version of PT Barnum with some of his patients at times, so I can’t really recommend him. If you do read him, his later works are more humanizing than his earlier ones, starting around Musicophillia iirc.
Thank you for the answer!
The Hot Zone is cool, but gets a little ecofash in the conclusion.
Will check this out, thanks!
I hope you like it!
