Love is fundamental to the flourishing of society and nature. However, the competition of the market economy has resulted in a fractured and traumatized modern world.

Revisiting philosophical developments and countercultures since the Enlightenment, this book offers a ‘loving critique’. It shows how learning to love better is the key to releasing ourselves from the alienating grip of the market.

The utopian template presented draws on archaeology, the witch trials, hippies, Hinduism, Buddhism, quantum mechanics and psychedelics to describe how we can build a more loving society that can survive and flourish through the ecological, ethical, economic and existential crises that we all now face.

“In Love and the Market, Faure Walker asks why our ‘world of transactions’ cannot be one centred around 'Love'. It's a brave person who evokes this four-letter word in a contemporary critical theory text, yet Faure Walker does so incisively and boldly, placing this fundamental human feeling at the centre of political and economic critique. An important book in an era beholden to the politics of hate, reminding us that there is another way.” Mike Watson, Goldsmiths, University of London

“How great to read a book that offers a way out of the social, economic and environmental chaos that now dominates modern life. It is based on a profound understanding of love and what it is to be human. The pages shine with hope.” Francis Pryor, Archaeologist

Rob Faure Walker is Research England Fellow at University College London. He helps others heal from the alienation of modernity via integratedmindscapes.co.uk.