Everything for Everyone

  I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072

Author: 

M. E. O'Brien,

 

Eman Abdelhadi

Publisher: Common Notions

Release Date: 8.2.22

Publisher’s Summary 

By the middle of the twenty-first century, war, famine, economic collapse, and climate catastrophe had toppled the world's governments. In the 2050s, the insurrections reached the nerve center of global capitalism—New York City. This book, a collection of interviews with the people who made the revolution, was published to mark the twentieth anniversary of the New York Commune, a radically new social order forged in the ashes of capitalist collapse.

Here is the insurrection in the words of the people who made it, a cast as diverse as the city itself. Nurses, sex workers, antifascist militants, and survivors of all stripes recall the collapse of life as they knew it and the emergence of a collective alternative. Their stories, delivered in deeply human fashion, together outline how ordinary people's efforts to survive in the face of crisis contain the seeds of a new world.

My Review

Hmmm, how do you define this fiction book that's not a novel? A futuristic alternate history? Utopian speculative fiction? A handbook for a new world order?  The collection of 12 interviews read like nonfiction in their traditional formatting and style. Even the topics and language, while evolved from current situations and terminology, feel contemporary and accessible. I definitely found this book interesting and thought-provoking, but I would refrain from recommending this to an average reader. Instead, I would recommend this to readers with a bit more of a foothold and interest in social, economic, and gender theories, as this book reads more like a book from a college course syllabus.