100 Books Like Ecotopia

I like books that change the very ways in which I see and understand the world.

Polanyi’s The Great Transformation from the end of WW2 made it much clearer to me how a world which regularly finds technological solutions to humankind’s problems could also descend into barbarism. Modern capitalism’s subordinating the functioning of society to the demands of the market changes the status of nature itself in ways that I am increasingly aware of, as the ecological crisis threatens the very survival of humankind.

The book appeals to me not least because of the ways in which it draws important philosophical conclusions from a detailed historical narrative rather than just stating theoretical positions.

This is a dark, scary story about a world ruled by fear.

Orwell is the father of the dystopian novel, in my opinion. I loved this book not only because Orwell created a great atmospheric novel, but his words create vivid pictures of such a society – better than the film.

The Biosphere 2 project was the wackiest multimillion-dollar enterprise to emerge from the New Age movement. This book is a nonfiction account of how a New Mexico commune, with a charismatic leader, developed a plan to test the viability of off-planet living by creating a sealed-off biosphere, which would be a self-sustaining and organizing ecosystem in which humans could survive. The goal was to create not a sterile environment but one that supported life that would make off-planet living appealing. The four men and four women sequestered for two years in the 3.14-acre domed-off area outside Tucson grew into two factions that hated one another. All came close to starvation, CO2 poisoning, and madness. For readers that simply must have narrative in fiction form, T. Corraghesson Boyle’s The Terranauts is based on this same early 1990s episode. 

I loved this book as it opened up a whole new perspective on climate change for me, and how we can tell a different story, a new one.

Discussions about climate change are often characterised by an adversarial nature and war-like terminology (we need to fight climate change, we need to prove the sceptics wrong), and the book moves beyond simplistic carbon reductionism and climate fundamentalism to focus on our love of nature and how we can use that to create a different story of “interbeing,” a story of regeneration, of reanimation, of love and of abundance to care for and protect nature on which we all depend.

And who can argue with love?

Architect-philosopher Paolo Soleri writes in an oracular style introducing his way-outsized book of designs for hyper-dense, concrete-megastructure cities in the deserts or oceans or even in space, none actually realized except for a very small prototype called “Arcosanti” in the high plateaus north of Phoenix, a campus that could have been built in a summer by a middle-sized reinforced-concrete contractor but in fact has been slowly erected by trainee-volunteers and a diehard community of followers over the last half-century. But there is something to it. “Tightly-woven minimalist packages will become mandatory.” I recommend the tabloid-sized original edition: it fits the buildings.

How many times have I reread it? Science/futurist fiction in the style of an Odyssey-scale and -style epic poem about (yes) the terraforming of Mars, a spectacular interplanetary saga framed against the background of the struggle against a misanthropic and authoritarian “Ecotheism” that has taken over Earth, and ending with a long and compelling hymn to the result, a new start on our transformed sister planet. Ecotopia, in short... on Mars!

This is a cyberpunk classic, but what I really love about it is the combination of modern computer technology with Sumerian mythology, the Tower of Babel myth, and how well Stephenson is able to integrate them, so we have hackers throwing around Sumerian terms like 'me' and 'nam-shub'.

And for me, I love that there’s just a lot of cool stuff happening here, like a biker with an atomic bomb on a deadman switch, a nuclear-powered needle gun. And our lead character is named Hiro Protagonist. But probably the biggest point for me is that despite the dystopian setting, there really is more hope in this story than one would think.

What moved me is how much it means to belong to the Acoma estate.

Nacoya with her sharp wisdom, Keyoke with his unyielding honor, Arakasi with his chosen allegiance, even the grey warriors—they all belong to something bigger than themselves. When danger hits, the fear ripples through everyone. When triumph comes, it lifts all of them.

A big draw of the book was seeing people pull together not because they’re supposed to, but because they genuinely care. The Acoma isn’t just a political house; it feels like a place where being needed gives everyone a kind of quiet dignity. 

Ursula K Le Guin does not pull any punches in The Word for World is Forest, placing the peaceful nature-oriented inhabitants of the planet Athshe firmly in the grips of the callous colonists from Terra. The Athsheans find no alternative but to fight back and reclaim their world and their forests.

I was inspired by this book, which Le Guin wrote before the environmental dangers we acknowledge today became so blatantly evident. As an author, she was prophetic and brave, the kind of author I can only aspire to be.

The Athshean characters that she creates are also courageous, reclaiming their world by forcing the Terrans to retreat from the planet. I would so dearly love to feel as connected to our planet as the Athsheans do to theirs. 

In this book by Starhawk, I picture backyard gardens, food for all, streams that wash through what used to be modern city of San Francisco, a place where meeting the needs of all the people is the responsibility of everyone.

This book has so much story to tell. It is a woman-centered book that imagines the violence of an imposing army turning on itself, a book in which the people of San Francisco stand true to themselves, even inviting opposing soldiers to join them and eat food in a nurturing environment.

I love the women in this book, especially Maya and her granddaughter Madrone. Madrone is a healer who offers to treat the opposing General. People caring for people and their environment is what I love about life.