Tithi Bhattacharya and Susan Ferguson: Making Death and Life in Palestine

Pluto Press, 2025, softcover, 192 pages, 14 x 21.6 cm

Why is the Israeli assault against Palestinians so shockingly brutal?

Social reproduction theory is a big idea. It explores how the daily renewal of human life, and therefore human labour, is essential to capitalism. Here, leading feminists come together to apply the theory to one of its most extreme settings – that of Palestine.

Israel’s settler colonialism is premised on the eradication of Palestinian lives, undermining Palestinian social reproduction at every turn. This project, which ramped up after October 7th, does have a logic, and by examining the concrete, historically specific details, the authors begin to reshape and refine the theory of Social Reproduction, shedding light on why Israel’s assault is so brutal.

Chapters look at Israel’s mass murder of a generation of Palestinians in Gaza, the effects of ecocide, the relationship between land dispossession and class, Israel’s selective pronatalism, scholasticide and other topics. By understanding this deadly logic, we can look deeper into the heart of the evils of capitalism, and stand in solidarity with Palestine.