Historical Materialism Book Series354 Hellworld: the Human Species and Planetary Factory

Hellworld contributes to debates within Marxian economic geography on the nature of value, its spatial elaboration through the development of territorial industrial complexes, and trends in deagrarianization and deindustrialization, while also exploring the implications for theories of revolutionary subjectivity. Hellworld examines the megastructures of global capitalism, asking how revolutionary subjectivity might emerge within and against capital’s domesticating force. Central to this inquiry is the planetary factory: the global value chains connecting disparate industrial territories, the rise of China, the fragmentation of global trade, and, above all, the simultaneous deagrarianisation and deindustrialisation of labor. These structural shifts are linked to subjective forces, exploring how social divisions shape resistance. Through an analysis of uprisings in Hong Kong, Thailand, Sudan, and beyond, Hellworld considers whether this system—inescapable as it seems—can, perhaps, be destroyed.