Climate Change and the Nation State cover art

Climate Change and the Nation State

The Realist Case

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Climate Change and the Nation State

By: Anatol Lieven
Narrated by: Charlie Anson
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

In the past two centuries we have experienced wave after wave of overwhelming change. Entire continents have been resettled; there are billions more of us; the jobs done by countless people would be unrecognizable to their predecessors; scientific change has transformed us all in confusing, terrible and miraculous ways.

Anatol Lieven's major new book provides the frame that has long been needed to understand how we should react to climate change. This is a vast challenge, but we have often in the past had to deal with such challenges: the industrial revolution, major wars and mass migration have seen mobilizations of human energy on the greatest scale. Just as previous generations had to face the unwanted and unpalatable, so do we.

In a series of incisive, compelling interventions, Lieven shows how in this emergency our crucial building block is the nation state. The drastic action required both to change our habits and protect ourselves can be carried out not through some vague globalism but through maintaining social cohesion and through our current governmental, fiscal and military structures.

This is a book which will provoke innumerable discussions.

© Anatol Lieven 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Environment Politics & Government Science Socialism Capitalism War Taxation

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Responsible Globalist cover art
Modern China (2nd Edition) cover art
The Death of the Left cover art
Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone cover art
Defeating Big Government Socialism cover art
How to Make Love to a Despot cover art
Getting China Wrong cover art
Friendly Fascism cover art
Strategic Vision cover art
Blackshirts and Reds cover art
Socialism (2nd Edition) cover art
The World cover art
Saving Us cover art
Against the Great Reset cover art
Has China Won? cover art
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution cover art

Critic reviews

Provocative, original and thought-provoking ... Lieven argues convincingly that there is no inevitable link between nationalism and climate denialism. (Pilita Clark)
Striking ... The climate crisis is a test of our character. And Lieven does not like what it reveals. His book offers a blueprint for an epochal social and political transformation. (Adam Tooze)

Lieven believes we must start again - or, rather, return to older foundations in the face of this primal threat to our planet's future. We need, he argues, a new nationalism ... We should heed Lieven's call to action.

(Mark Malloch-Brown)
Lieven maps out a response to the environmental crisis that draws on both the radical social democracy of Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal and the burgeoning "eco-nationalism" of Europe's reactionary populists ... There's no denying the prescience of Lieven's analysis ... Lieven offers a sobering account of the climate crisis, how dramatically it is going to reshape human life, and how quickly that transformation is likely to take effect. (Jamie Maxwell)
Convincing ... Lieven weaves his first-hand knowledge and experience into a compelling narrative ... He makes a strong case for urgent action, especially by powerful states. (Maria Ivanova)
This is one of those rare books that have something really important to say. Anatol Lieven, one of the most original and independent-minded foreign policy thinkers, is telling his fellow realists that at this moment the world's great powers are far more threatened by climate change than they are by each other. (Ivan Krastev, author of The Light That Failed)
Passivity in the face of climate change is the fatalism of our age. Anatol Lieven's book offers a bracing riposte to those who believe only world government can solve global warming. Lieven makes a brilliant case that the nation state has to be the chief vehicle to confront humanity's surpassing crisis. Lieven is utterly persuasive about this challenge - above all the importance of our not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. If you read one book on global warming, this should be it. (Edward Luce, author of The Retreat of Western Liberalism)
Thus far, the global response to climate change emphasises talk rather than effective action. Lieven fills this strategic void by insisting that enlightened civic nationalism alone can stem this threat. Only the nation state can constrain corporate capitalism from further harming the environment. Only the nation state can motivate citizens to make the sacrifices needed to curb the mounting damage. This is a bold, original, gutsy, and absolutely essential book. (Andrew J. Bacevich, author of The Age of Illusions)
All stars
Most relevant
This is an important book that should be widely read. It takes a broader, and very sobering, look at the threat that we face from climate change. It is well written, lucid and clear, and he manages to make the reader aware of the impending apocalypse we face without hyperbole or histrionics.

It covers a lot of ground in detail and it would not be possible to summarise this in a short review. However, the key idea is that to deal with climate change there is a basic problem. We will need to change our behaviour and way of life. We can wait until climate change forces us through drought, famine or forced migration, or we can wait until we are forced by authoritarian moves to try and cope or we can band together to try and change early and possibly mitigate the coming changes.

But there is a major problem; how do we agree to what we will give up or change? I am quite happy never to fly for recreation again, but are you? I am quite happy to see my energy consumption reduced, but does that fit your future plans? If we are going to make these decisions, we will need a forum to discuss and agree them. That needs to be a real forum where we can feel we are connected and "all in this together", this needs to be the nation state with a strong sense of civic nationalism. In this setting, rather like in times of war, people can discover purpose and duty and work with their fellow citizens the change behaviour and course.

Correctly people have described our setting being that of a climate emergency - in an emergency all other issues take second place as we have not time to give them focus. in an emergency, as in war, all actions are driven and guided by the need to win the war or end the emergency. Only by working as nations will we gather the cohesion necessary to meet this challenge.

Excellent; sobering but hopeful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.