Ugh. How do I review this book? I was trying to find an analogy to capture my disappointment, but I couldn’t find a good one. So here’s the best I can do: imagine you love chocolate, and your restaurant menu says they have a glorious chocolate cake sandwich thing. Then imagine the exact opposite of chocolate. Shit, let’s say. You’re delivered a shit sandwich. And that’s what you’re meant to eat.

The entire book, to me, was basically like eating shit sandwiches when I thought I was going to get chocolate. Again, not a perfect analogy, but you probably get my point.

The promise of “reconciling nature with prosperity” is the promise of finally solving a problem that has plagued us for 150 years. It’s the dream of the circular economy, of decoupling resource use from economic growth. My chocolate. Yummy. But then you learn the author’s primary definition of “nature” is subsoil resources, aka fossil fuels. The exact opposite of nature. The destroyer of nature and its support systems. Definitely not chocolate.

Moreover, traditional definitions of “prosperity” and fossil fuels go hand in hand. Very few people have ever said “oh yeah, Saudi Arabia would be so much wealthier if they didn’t have oil.” So…yeah. Another tally in the negative. To be fair, his focus on the consequences of poor governance makes clear that even ownership of fossil fuel resources does not guarantee a general increase in prosperity. But still. The title of the book is no less misleading.

Of the things I would actually classify in the category “nature” – things that, well, live or support life – he only addresses fish. And when it comes to prosperity’s impact on my idea of nature, he gives a basic account of CO2 and a proposal to tax it, not really reconciling this with what he’s just said about the need for fossil resources. Here I will upgrade the content from “shit” to “brown paste”. At least it’s something you’d define as food, but definitely not chocolate.

Okay, rant over, I’m done. Intellectually, I gained nothing from this book. If your definition of nature has something to do with “life” or “life-supporting”, you’ll probably wind up as dissatisfied as I was.

Verdict: Do not recommend. No. Just no. Disappointing basically from start to finish.