Book Review: The Dispossessed
Two worlds from Ursela Le Guin
My youth and early adulthood was full of science fiction reading. Somehow I missed the works of Ursela Le Guin. A Medium contributor introduced me to her work a year or two ago.
The Dispossessed is about two planets, Urras and Anarres, which call each other their moons.
Urras is rich in resources and has a human-friendly climate. It has a capitalist nature, with wealthier classes enjoying the benefits of capitalism. The lower classes are “surviving.”
Urras has banned much of its mining to protect its environment. It gets much of its minerals from Anarres.
Anarres is hot and dry, with only a few plant and animal species. While Urras had been mining Anarres for a long time, there was no permanent human settlements.
Two hundred years ago, a revolutionary movement, the Odonians, started organizing on Urras. The belligerent parties agreed to a truce, with the condition that the Odonians were to immigrate to Anarres and set up permanent habitation on this harsh planet. Small cities were built; a new social order was established based on the philosophy of the Odonian founder.
This social order was anti-capitalism. The Anarresti people were accustomed to serving the needs of their state. While they…
