In direct language, Unsustainable explains the double bind in which humanity now finds itself - an environmental crisis that is escalating year on year, and a human and social crisis of poverty and inequality that is also growing increasingly worse. Aimed at a concerned, popular audience, including both budding social activists and young people studying the environment and international development, the book explains how these twin crises share the same historical roots. Brilliantly combining a huge amount of up-to-date information, visual charts, and clear explanation, Hossay shows step by step how a particular historical path of colonialism, capitalist development and industrial growth has brought us to this state.

He shows how current attempts to develop effective environmental policies and to promote sustainable and socially just development internationally are being stymied by free-market forces, corporate-centered globalization, and the policies and actions of key international institutions.

The very structure of our global order is unsustainable. There are no simple answers. Changing our own behavior is important, but fundamentally inadequate. Hossay argues that only a fundamental restructuring of the way we do business will save us from environmental and human catastrophe. And he suggests ways in which we can work for such changes.