Ruben Pater nailed the visuals in this book. It was vigorously illustrated, with a lot of attention towards font hierarchies and image selection. It’s a deceptively short read as the thickness accounts for such a large amount of images and references which really helped navigate each of Pater’s topics and points. The full page images were strong anchors, along with several juxtapositions of images which were very thought provoking.

The main problem I had was with the amount of topics, speaking points and conclusions. The writing got pretty redundant towards the middle and though Pater dug into each topic thoroughly it didn’t leave much room for a coherent conclusion for each part. Thus the author couldn’t expand on some really complex ideas quoted by the likes of Ivan Illich, Sylvia Federici, and Hito Steyerl, among many others. It risked over-simplifying. The repeated call to actions would have been more effective if saved for a stronger conclusion rather than broken into many sections. Pater also saved some pretty bold claims for these conclusions which couldn’t be fully explained or were not explicitly mentioned. The momentum was also broken up with the introduction of each new topic, in which the author would do a sort of history crash course of said topic. That repetitive outline didn’t do the design of the book justice.

Nevertheless the main motif of the book was a really effective provocation. Since each chapter resulted in the discussion of a sort of “commons,” Pater was able to develop that discussion fully, which resulted in a conclusion more effective than the individual parts.

I hope to come back to this book for its all sorts of references to art, photography, activism and protest, and will certainly take inspiration from Ruben Pater’s attention to the books’ design.