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The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow (Verso Press, 2026).
“Mitchell offers a paradigm-shifting critique of he logic that underlies the modern economy… This bracing and original analysis demands a reorientation of many received wisdoms.” Publishers Weekly
“A novel theory and history of capital, crafted from Mitchell’s extraordinary erudition, theoretical imagination, and discernment of entire constellations of power in what others pass over as minor details. His argument that capital preys on the future—encumbering, impoverishing, indebting, depleting, discounting and building it—is essential to grasping why capitalism is incompatible with both thriving planetary life and meaningful democracy.” Wendy Brown
Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (Verso Press, 2012, revised edition 2023).
Also published as an audiobook by Tantor Media and available from Audiobooks.com or Audible.
“It’s a book that tackles a really big subject, in a sweeping but readable fashion, and after reading it, it’s hard to imagine thinking about political power the same way again … This book utterly blew me away.” – Matt Stoller, Naked Capitalism
Translations:
French: Carbon Democracy: Le pouvoir politique à l’ère du pétrole, trans. Christophe Jacquet. Paris: La découverte, 2013.
Turkish: Karbon Demokrasi: Petrol Çağında Siyasal İktidar. Trans. Fırat Berksun. Istanbul: Açılım Kitap, 2014.
Arabic: Dimukratiyat al-karbun: al-sulta al-siyasiya fi `asr al-naft. Trans. Bashir al-Siba`i and Sherif Younis. Cairo: Al-Markaz al-qawmi li-l-tarjama, 2014
Russian: Delo Publishing House (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration), 2014
Persian: Dimukrasi Karboni. Trans. Shahriar Khavajian. Tehran: Qoqnoos Publishing, 2016
Korean: Energy and Climate Policy Institute, 2017
Japanese: Translation of the Introduction to the book (full translation forthcoming, Misuzu Shobo).
Chinese translation: Shanghai Sanhui Culture and Press Ltd, 2024
Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (University of California Press, 2002)
“Brilliant … the writing is superb. The prose is luminous and limpid, undergirded by steely passion and resolve … Demonstrated brilliantly.”
—Trevor Barnes Environment & Planning D
Columbia University Library e-copy
Arabic edition: Hukm al-khubaraa’. Trans. Bashir al-Siba`i. Cairo: National Translation Office, 2011.
Questions of Modernity (Edited, University of Minnesota Press, 2000)
“Mitchell puts forward his compelling thesis that the signal feature of the modern is the process of representation…— the particular modality of social reference through which the distinction between image and reality is configured.”
— Bill Maurer, American Anthropologist
E-book on publisher’s site; E-book on JSTOR; Columbia University Library e-copy
Colonising Egypt (University of California Press, 1991)
“Written with great tact and decency, and suggests just how much is at stake in understanding the radical nature of colonialism as a form of power.”
— Helen Pringle, Politics
Free e-copy from University Of California Press.
Translations:
Arabic: Dar Sina, Cairo, 1990, trans. Bashir al-Siba`i. Reprinted: Madarat li-l-abhath wa-l-nashr, Cairo, 2013.
Turkish: Iletişim Yaginevi, Istanbul, 2001.
Polish: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2002
Japanese: Hosei University Press, 2014
Books In Arabic:
These works consist mainly of translations of articles also published in English, although a few of the essays have been published only in Arabic.
Dirasatan haula al-turath wa-‘l-hadatha [Two Studies in Heritage and Modernity] Trans. Bashir al-Siba`i. Cairo: Merit Press, 2006.
Al-dimuqratiyya wa-l-dawla fi al-`alam al-`arabi [.pdf] [الديموقراطية والدولة في العالم العربي , Democracy and the State in the Arab World]. Trans. Bashir al-Siba`i. Cairo: Dar Misr al-`Arabiyya, 1996.
Reprinted, Cairo: al-Hay’a al-misriya al-`amma li-‘l- kitab, 2005
Misr fi al-khitab al-amriki [Egypt in American Discourse]. Trans. Bashir al-Siba`i. Damascus: Dar `Iybal, 1992.