Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor, broadcaster, and Walkley Award-winning journalist. He is a columnist for The Guardian Australia, a former Breakfaster at Melbourne's 3RRR, and a past editor of Overland literary journal. His most recent books are Fascists Among Us: online hate and the Christchurch massacre; Trigger Warnings: political correctness and the rise of the right; and No Way But This: in search of Paul Robeson. He lectures at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at The University of Melbourne.
"The common narrative that pits humanity against nature assumes
that our "innate greed" implicates us all in climate change. The
environmental movement, too, buys into this myth with its longing
for pristine wilderness unspoiled by humankind, argues Jeff
Sparrow. This urgent, incisive work resoundingly refutes this
arbitrary divide by showing how industrialisation, in the hands of
the wealthy and powerful, drove a wedge between ordinary people and
the natural world. Hence, the simplistic "jobs versus environment"
binary that stymies our current climate-change debate. The
alternative, however, is right under our noses. "In pre-capitalist
Australia, humans did not despoil the land." They worked in harmony
with it, enhancing nature rather than plundering it. And it was a
collective endeavour. It is in this understanding of human nature
that Sparrow finds hope."
--Cameron Woodhead & Fiona Capp, The Sydney Morning Herald "Sparrow
tells these stories with the lucidity and animation of a true crime
podcast. He dissects the reactionary nature of placing mankind in
opposition to nature: it not only erases millennia of Indigenous
peoples' relative harmony with the natural world, but seeks to
preserve nature for the select few destroying it for everyone else.
He is fearless too in his criticism of progressives who write off
their fellow citizens as uncaring and complicit in global warming.
That corporations invested in such sophisticated public relations
campaigns shows they "understand something about ordinary peoples
that escapes many environmentalists" that ordinary people are not
"innately greedy or selfish" ... Amid the doom and gloom of so much
contemporary environmentalism, this is worthy of applause."
--Conrad Landin, The Saturday Paper "I find it difficult to read
about climate change at the moment, because the problem feels
overwhelming and ultimately fatal to all of us. But Crimes Against
Nature: Capitalism and Global Heating promises hope."
--Jo Case, InDaily "[E]xquisitely argued"
--Thomas Klikauer, Marx & Philosophy "Sparrow is one of Australia's
leading public intellectuals, and Crimes Against Nature is both
provocative and deeply considered ... Get ready for a
myth-shattering call to arms."
--SALife
Praise for Fascists Among Us: "Sparrow convincingly argues that the
more we understand about the last terrorist, the better we can
prevent the next one"
--Kirkus Reviews "This short but incisive book builds to a stirring
and well-argued conclusion... What Sparrow does so eloquently... is
overtly link fascism, historically and theoretically, with
political violence."
--Kelsey Oldham, Books+Publishing, four stars Praise for Trigger
Warnings: "In the age of fake news and the seeming triumph of
political populism, Jeff Sparrow's Trigger Warnings is a vital book
for our times. With the integrity of political thought and action
under threat from social media sloganeering, with Donald Trump
holding court in the White House and "political correctness" the
catch-all suffocation of dissent, Jeff Sparrow challenges us to
respond with intelligence and conviction."
--Tony Birch, author of Ghost River Praise for No Way But This:
"Sparrow shows how this admittedly splendid actor, this marvelous
singer, this charismatic speaker, had somehow evolved into
something more: he had for many people become the embodiment of the
global longing for a better world, a juster dispensation... Sparrow
has made perfect and haunting sense of him."
--Simon Callow, New York Review of Books "In a chronologically
methodical and delightfully insightful approach that might best be
described as "bio-tourism", Australian author, journalist, and
broadcaster Sparrow tells the story of preternaturally gifted Paul
Robeson... [A]n excellent and perhaps timely reboot of Robeson's
singularly incredible life, especially as its trajectory now
intersects with contemporary racial issues."
--Library Journal
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