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A review by woolfen
How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm
4.0
4 Stars.
Malm splits this book up into two major parts - before loosely tieing it together at the end. It definitely seemed like he ran out of steam.
The first is spent exploring and arguing against historical strategic pacifism in protest movements that are mirrored to modern climate change movements such as XR and how the depth of non-violence is intrinsic to modern environmental resistance. I don't feel fully convinced by this part, but as a critique of pacifism as a tool - it is both handy and well-argued.
The second is spent exploring the philosophical and moral arguments against violence and the nature of resistance. This was much more convincing laid out and deploys lots of illustrative examples of general resistance analogous to environmental resistance. Here Malm's socialist throughline is the most evident - and people opposed to this world view might not find this chapter as convincing.
The final part is about the importance of hope - and like much rhetoric centred around hope is vaguely stirring but the abstract nature of reading about the 'power of hope' is generally quite stunting to its own goals. Ultimately however - the message of shifting apathy meaningfully to anger does carry through and is very convincing. A lot of points during this book I was actively shaking my head and frowning like a cartoon character.
Malm splits this book up into two major parts - before loosely tieing it together at the end. It definitely seemed like he ran out of steam.
The first is spent exploring and arguing against historical strategic pacifism in protest movements that are mirrored to modern climate change movements such as XR and how the depth of non-violence is intrinsic to modern environmental resistance. I don't feel fully convinced by this part, but as a critique of pacifism as a tool - it is both handy and well-argued.
The second is spent exploring the philosophical and moral arguments against violence and the nature of resistance. This was much more convincing laid out and deploys lots of illustrative examples of general resistance analogous to environmental resistance. Here Malm's socialist throughline is the most evident - and people opposed to this world view might not find this chapter as convincing.
The final part is about the importance of hope - and like much rhetoric centred around hope is vaguely stirring but the abstract nature of reading about the 'power of hope' is generally quite stunting to its own goals. Ultimately however - the message of shifting apathy meaningfully to anger does carry through and is very convincing. A lot of points during this book I was actively shaking my head and frowning like a cartoon character.