Reportage on a planet without equitable or sustainable development.
arcadia and utopia
“Three years after the end of World War II, the poet W.H. Auden wrote an essay called ‘Arcadia and Utopia” in which he proposed the two places as categories of belief. Arcadians believe that paradise was in the past; propose that we return to a simpler state, a lost state of grace, and distrust government, technology, progress, and anything that tends to uproot, to supplant the country with the city, the simple with the complex. Utopians reach for their shimmering vision of a perfectible future with all the authority and technology within their grasp… Perhaps the most perfect example of the two philosophies come into conflict today is in the confrontations between anti-nuclear activists and nuclear physicists.”
From Savage Dreams, by Rebecca Solnit.
I am an Indian journalist with interests in energy, environment, climate and India’s ongoing slide into right-wing authoritarianism. My book, Despite the State, an examination of pervasive state failure and democratic decay in India, was published by Westland Publications, India, in January 2021. My work has won the Bala Kailasam Memorial Award; the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award; and five Shriram Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism. Write to me at despitethestate@protonmail.com.
“Westland closure: Titles that are selling fast and a few personal recommendations,” by Chetana Divya Vasudev, Moneycontrol. (Because this happened too. In February, a year after DtS was released, Amazon decided to shutter Westland, which published the book. The announcement saw folks rushing to buy copies of Westland books before stocks run out.)
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