Review: Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor by Rob Nixon

Subhankar Banerjee reviews Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor by Rob Nixon in the LARB

Equipped with a homeopathic vial filled with critiques of neoliberal globalization and militarism, and a literary guide who is determined to make distant sights visible through narrative, you’ll embark on a bullock cart for a transitional safari through the global South — the Caribbean, Kenya and Nigeria, India, Indonesia and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and South Africa — with Rob Nixon via his latest book, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. When you return home, after a slow, rough ride, having survived the media’s acid rain, your understanding of what environmentalism is today will surely be broader.