Timothy Mitchell, "The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow" (Verso, 2026)

New Books in Environmental Studies · Jul 21, 2026 · 58m

Stealing the future and concealing the theft—capitalism’s method, as examined by the author of the acclaimed Carbon Democracy Today, extraordinary wealth seems to arrive from nowhere. The trick of conjuring this unearned wealth is, in fact, the key to understanding capital­ism’s origins and a clue to why the catastrophe of climate collapse is upon us: value is created by consuming the future. In The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow (Verso, 2026), Professor Timothy Michell explains how this came about through the imperial…