Review: A History of the Future by James Kunstler
In the category of thrilling fiction about our post-industrial future, James Howard Kunstler’s World Made By Hand novels have no equal.
book review
Mr. Toad in Union Grove: Review of A History of The Future by James Howard Kunstler
The novel is an exploration of the process of rebuilding a broken civilization, even as the old continues to decay and collapse in both expected and unexpected ways.
Resilience Food Growing: A Multibook Review
A look at four books which take different approaches to creating resilient food growing models.
Decline and Fall – Book Review
Very few people will read this book without bristling at least once at things Greer says…which I regard as one of its virtues.
The New Farmer’s Almanac
Like the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the New Farmer’s Almanac offers long range weather forecasts, full moon dates, sunrise and sunset times, best planting dates, crop advice, tides tables, riddles, games, recipes, songs, and folk wisdom.
Review: Snake Oil: how fracking’s false promise of plenty imperils our future
For those who thought the ‘fracking’ issue was just about water pollution and earthquakes, Richard Heinberg’s Snake Oilmight be a little perplexing.
Review: Paradise Lot
In practice, self-reliance can be harder than permaculture experts sometimes make it sound. This is where Eric Toensmeier’s ‘Paradise Lot’ comes in. Anyone who finds him or herself discouraged in their permaculture garden efforts should take heart and read this book.
Less is more, more or less
The basic tenet of the steady state economy (or SSE) is an observation that makes complete sense: you can’t have infinite growth in a finite system. Unfortunately, conventional economics – perhaps in an attempt to defy its characterization as the dismal science – says otherwise. Its faith in unending growth portrays it as both possible and desirable.
Economies should be shaped to suit man
Sacred Economics is a hugely ambitious book. It takes aim at the most basic intellectual and moral foundations of our modern industrial societies. The author, Charles Eisenstein, is fully aware that many of his arguments and proposals will seem naïve, utopian and hopelessly idealistic to sceptical readers, versed in the realities of current-day economic theory and practice. However, as he puts it, these ideas only ‘await a deepening of the crisis for the unthinkable to become common sense.’
Review: The Localization Reader, edited by Raymond De Young and Thomas Princen
For general audiences and experts alike, this is an engaging, accessible reader that takes an affirmative social change approach to localization.
Energy literacy through an astonishing coffee table book
It is hard to imagine a more unlikely vehicle for advancing energy literacy than a finely crafted large format picture book. Energy, after all, is invisible. We see its effects, but never the thing itself. And yet, Energy: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth succeeds and succeeds profoundly.
No place sacred: ENERGY (review)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. With that in mind, the 195 color, mostly full page — often double page — photographs in the Post Carbon Institute’s latest book, ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, speaks volumes beyond its gigantic sized pages about the energy and environmental predicament humanity is immersed in today.
