With well-chosen data, Siegel demonstrates how countries like The Netherlands have "created a prosperous economy with low unemployment" due to letting employees work fewer hours, though he’s clear-eyed about the practical challenges of fostering such profound change. To that end, he examines historical precedents like the Depression and the women's rights movement, chronicling the many ways employment actually has changed within the past century. The stakes are high, and he’s compelling in his depiction of a potential future where, if American workers continue to work, produce, and consume at the continued growing rate of recent decades, technology and environmental catastrophes will "bring immense destruction.”

Through consistent reiteration of its thesis—"this book looks at a way of dealing with ecological limits that is more politically practical"—even when Siegel entertains oddball hypotheticals like what if helicopters became the new cars, To Save the Earth, Work Less is an urgent, thought-provoking resource that challenges orthodoxies of American workforce, consumerism, capitalism, inequality, and "the law of diminishing marginal utility.” This is a quick, potent read that will spark conversation and provide food for thought on essential questions of the American dream, what it actually means to feel satisfied in life, and nothing less than the fate of the world.

Takeaway: Urgent call to reduce work, consumption, and inequality and save the planet.

Comparable Titles: Mary Robinson's Climate Justice, Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything.

Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A