The Planetary Factory

The Planetary Factory is an archive, blog, and cartographic workshop examining global flows of value and the territories they produce. It is run by communist geographer Phil A. Neel, regular contributor to Field Notes (Brooklyn Rail) and author of Hinterland: America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict (Reaktion, 2018), and Hellworld: The Human Species and the Planetary Factory (Brill/Haymarket 2025). Subscribers have access to advance drafts of articles and book chapters, unpublished archival pieces, data analysis, maps, and material from ongoing research.

Content

The Planetary Factory will cover a broad range of material, including previews from Hellworld, breakdowns of charts and maps, data analysis, brief photo essays, drafts and advanced versions of forthcoming articles, previously unpublished material (including some fiction and poetry), book reviews, talk transcripts, and more. It will also serve as a live blog compiling my current research on industrial trends in the US South.

Overview

I am a communist geographer with academic training in the field (you can download my dissertation here) but I am not a “scholar-activist,” a “radical academic,” or part of the “undercommons,” for the simple reason that I rarely have an academic job. Most of the time, I barely have a job at all. At best, I might be hired by professors as a research assistant for a few months or offered temporary adjunct positions teaching courses for poverty wages. This is not due to some principled opposition to the academy (I’m too poor for such principles, email me about openings) so much as the conventional disadvantages faced by academic workers from lower-class backgrounds combined with structural trends in academic labor (rapidly lowering wages amid a credentials glut).

As a result, I conduct my writing, research, and data analysis work in my own spare time, working menial jobs in warehousing and on the AI assembly line to pay the bills. These jobs then become focal points for writing and research, even while they push back the deadlines for forthcoming books and other projects. After many years of goading from friends and supporters, I’ve started this Substack page so that I can hopefully spend a little more time on independent research, accelerate the pace of my writing, compile my past work in one easy-to-access location, and further promote the basic approach and principles of communist geography.

You can support this project by subscribing here, gaining access to subscriber-only content, or you can send one-off donations to my CashApp. Most material will be available for free, but some will be reserved for paid subscribers. Out of every four posts, roughly one post will be limited to subscribers. In general, only subscribers will have access to drafts and advance versions of upcoming articles, while other material will be free. There is also a “founding” subscriber option for those who would like to pay more than the standard subscription charge. Founding subscribers will receive free digital copies of Hinterland, as well as Hellworld (upon its release) and any other forthcoming books.

Finally, I also work in a freelance capacity as a translator (Mandarin to English), editor, indexer, as well as in geographic analysis, GIS, and cartography. If you have a book that needs to be edited or indexed, an article that needs to be translated, a map that needs to be made, or you want to consult on a geographic project, please contact me to discuss options. Similarly, if you would like to set up a book reading, a talk, or a short course on any of my research, I’m happy to discuss options and will usually do promotional events free of charge. I can be reached via e-mail at: neelphillip@gmail.com

Bibliography

Books

Hinterland: America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict, 2018, Reaktion Press.

[Hinterland: Nouveau paysage de classe et de conflit aux États-Unis, Trans: Aurélien Lécuyer, 2020, Éditions Grevis]

Hellworld: The Human Species and the Planetary Factory, forthcoming 2025, Haymarket, Historical Materialism Book Series.

Academic Articles

Neel, Phillip, “The Doldrums: Shadows of Revolution in Theodore Dreiser’s Cold World,” Philosophy and Literature, 37(1), 2013. pp.164-178.

Neel, Phil A., “The New Geography of Suburbia: An Anatomy of America’s Hinterland,” New Labor Forum, April 6, 2018. Vol 27, Issue 2, pp. 28 – 35.

Neel, Phil A., “Broken Circle: Chinese Capital Exports and the Stumbling Development of New Territorial Industrial Complexes”, International Labor and Working Class History, Vol 102: Workers and Obsolescence, 2023. pp. 94-123. <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547922000321>

Neel, Phil, Drew Heiderscheidt, Jennifer Watkins, and Bradi Haeberlin, “46 – Justice”, in Ahsutosh, Ishtan and Winders, Jaime (eds.) The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Cultural and Social Geography, July 2025.

General Audience Articles and Interviews

Neel, Phil A. “Sweet 15,” The Brooklyn Rail, July 15, 2014. <http://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/07/field-notes/sweet-15>

Neel, Phil A. “The Great Wheel,” The Brooklyn Rail, April 2, 2015. <http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/04/field-notes/the-great-wheel>

Neel, Phil A. “The Crowned Plague,” The Brooklyn Rail, July-August, 2020. <https://brooklynrail.org/2020/07/field-notes/Crowned-Plague>

Neel, Phil A. “The Spiral,” The Brooklyn Rail, October 2020. <https://brooklynrail.org/2020/09/field-notes/The-Spiral-Epilogue-to-the-French-Edition-of-Hinterland-Americas-New-Landscape-of-Class-and-Conflict>

Neel, Phil A. “New Battlefields”, Interview with Turkish collective Komite, September 2021. English version on: Ill Will, 30 June 2022. <https://illwill.com/new-battlefields>

Neel, Phil A. “The Knife at Your Throat”, The Brooklyn Rail, October 2022. <https://brooklynrail.org/2022/10/field-notes/The-Knife-At-Your-Throat>

Neel, Phil A. “Hostile Brothers: New Territories of Value and Violence”, Interview with Turkish collective ­Komite, October 2023. English version: Brooklyn Rail, November 2023. <https://brooklynrail.org/2023/11/field-notes/Phil-Neel-with-Komite>

Neel, Phil A. and Nick Chavez, “Forest and Factory: The Science and the Fiction of Communism”, Endnotes, December 2024. <https://endnotes.org.uk/posts/forest-and-factory>

Neel, Phil A. “Quarter-Pounds of Flesh: Part 1”, The Brooklyn Rail, Dec/Jan 2024-25. <https://brooklynrail.org/2024/12/field-notes/quarter-pounds-of-flesh/>

Neel, Phil A. “A fistful of dripping hate”, Interview with Italian media outlet Infoaut, 12 December 2024. English version: <https://infoaut.org/traduzioni/a-fistful-of-dripping-hate-intervista-a-phil-a-neel-eng-version>

Neel, Phil A. “Quarter-Pounds of Flesh: Part 2”, The Brooklyn Rail, February 2025. <https://brooklynrail.org/2025/02/field-notes/quarter-pounds-of-flesh-2/>

Neel, Phil A. “A Tale of Two Ports: The Mirage of China in Africa”, Spectre, 23 March 2025. <https://spectrejournal.com/a-tale-of-two-ports/>