The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of torture.

Naomi Klein is a Canadian activist and author. She was born in 1970 in Montreal, Québec, and grew up in a Jewish family with communist roots. Her parents and her grandparents were engaged in left-wing activism, including anti-war activism. As a teenager, Klein rebelled against her mother’s outspoken feminist perspective, but later cited the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre as a turning point in her political development. Before Klein attended university, her mother had two strokes that left her physically disabled. Klein became her caregiver during her recovery. The following year, Klein began university at the University of Toronto, but dropped out twice and never completed her undergraduate degree.

Klein describes herself as an “ecofeminist” who is critical of unfettered capitalism. She advocates for a number of causes, particularly “climate justice,” or the concept that climate change and environmental degradation especially impacts poor and minority communities. Klein’s first bestselling book was No Logo (1999). No Logo is a critique of globalization, consumer culture, and labor abuses by large multinational corporations. Her next bestselling work was The Shock Doctrine (2007). Her most recent bestseller is Doppelganger: a Trip in the Mirror World (2023).