Public Policy Books

An inspiring, original, and thought provoking attack on today's environmental problems. Moreover, solutions are suggested rather than the average "go green" book that lists off the world's problems and leaves the reader with the question of "Now what?" I whole heartedly agree with the major themes of this book- they challenge the average American to be conscious- a trait each citizen is completely capable of having.

Thomas Princen presents a unique view on sustainability, introducing and developing the concept of sufficiency while using a creative and original style of writing.

This is a very well-written book, whose importance cannot be emphasized strongly enough. It deserves to be read widely, not only by academics and policy makers, but by all those who are concerned with the status quo and know that something has to change in our way of doing things, but have a hard time seeing how. As a whole, the book presents a detailed and compelling response to those who think there is ultimately no better way to solve the world's problems than to create better technologies, expand the economy, and let the markets solve the problems of displaced or hidden costs to the environment.

Princen shows, first, that the logic of efficiency (according to which maximizing goods and minimizing costs tends to be the ultimate argument for doing things) is only one among many approaches to good reasoning, and that its predominance came about as a result of a good deal of struggle and support by a wide range of institutions. It is also deceptive, in that there are always hidden costs and unexpected outcomes when a given efficiency is instituted. Suppose, for example, that we achieve the goal of more fuel efficient cars. Does that guarantee we will have less pollution and use less gas? Maybe it will mean more people will drive more often (using more energy and creating greater pollution in total even if not individually) and there will be a greater need for roads and higher numbers of fatalities on these roads. Moreover, such an achievement may help obscure and prolong some the many problems that are at least in part caused and supported by global fuel dependency and the need to constantly find new oil sources and to transport oil across the world: oil spills, destruction of ecosystems, not to mention worldwide conflict and economic inequality, even religious strife. The point is that we live in a complex world, where maximizing one variable can have an unexpected impact on other variables; or worse, where the choice of which variable gets maximized can be deliberately picked in order to obscure other outcomes that are less palatable. The "logic of efficiency" and "cost-benefit analysis" approaches to decision making are in the end not efficient and rarely take into account the real costs of the practices they endorse.

As an alternative (not as a replacement, but as a viable but different approach), Princen offers the logic of sufficiency, a principled extension of the commonsense intuition that sometimes enough is enough. Just because we can build faster cars, does that mean we should? Just because we can extract oil from the Alaskan wilderness, does that mean it is incumbent upon us to do so? The answers to these questions are complicated, but sometimes, under the sway of the logic of efficiency, we seem to forget to ask or we assume that the answers are obvious: if it makes things cheaper, or faster, or gets us more of what we want, then of course we should! But we are often unprepared for the "side effects" of such improvements -- like urban sprawl and increased crime, or (to pick another example) the spread of disease that came as a side effect of our convenient and inexpensive new methods for delivering fresh spinach.

What is perhaps most distinctive and worthwhile about Princen's book is that he shows the logic of sufficiency is not just a principle. It underlies what a number of flourishing communities have done in order to avoid the losses to their livelihoods and communities that they saw would follow if they followed the trends of maximizing profits and goods. They saw that in order to maintain their lifestyles they had to draw limits and restrain themselves. He deliberately chooses what he terms "hard cases" -- not those who deliberately isolate themselves from the modern world for ideological or religious reasons -- but companies and communities who, for both reasons of self-interest and as a result of their unique circumstances were led to make decisions that go against the grain of "progress" and "growth" and in the direction of sufficiency and sustainability. Princen sees the stories he tells of such peoples as reason to hope that as the rest of us grasp our own increasing dependence on a precarious and limited set of natural resources we will also begin to think differently and will come also to decide that enough is enough. Thomas Princen has written a very important and hopeful book, full of insight and thoughtful argument that can help guide us through such a transition. Highly recommended.

James Nash is a great teacher. I have him in class and find him amusing, challenging, and open to others who's opinions differ from his own. Loving Nature is a great book that takes the economics-environmental crisis seriously.

For several years I have been reading extensively in the area of Christian Environmentalism. These works range from popular to highly technical, from approaches that are fairly conservative to more progressive. I have not been completely satisfied with any of them, until I found a copy of James Nash's Loving Nature. It is by far the best book I have read on the topic. The perspective is balanced, thoughtful, insightful, and theologically sound. It is especially suitable for the Wesleyan theological tradition, to which I am belong. Nash's work is essential reading for anyone interested in Christian Environmental studies, whether they be theologians, scientists, or concerned laypersons! I recommend it especially to Christian Environmentalists, but it suitable to anyone who wants to explore an ethical approach to the Environmental crises. I used the book as required reading in a course I taught in January 1999 at Eastern Nazarene College ("A Christian Perspective on the Environment").

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION [begins with an ecological autobiography]

Character of the Crises; Purposes and Progression

1. DIMENSIONS AND DILEMMAS OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS: The Pollution Complex

Pollution: Poisoning Our Neighbors; Global Warming: Climate Change and Excessive Consumption; Ozone Depletion: What Price Convenience and Luxury?

2. DIMENSIONS AND DILEMMAS OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS: Exceeding the Limits

Resource Exhaustion: Living Beyond Planetary Means; Population Progress: Beyond Earth's Carrying Capacity; Maldistribution: The Linkage Betwen Economic Injustice and Ecological Degradation; Radical Reductions and Extinctions of Species: The Loss of Biodiversity; Genetic Enginering: Restraining Human Powers; The Ecological Virtues

3. THE ECOLOGICAL COMPLAINT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY

A Confession of Sin; No Single Cause; Christ and Culture; Ecological Sensitivity in Christian History; Interreligious Miscomparisons; Potential for Reformation;

4. FIRM FOUNDATIONS: Doctrines of Creation, Covenant, Divine Image, Incarnation, and Spiritual Presence

Creation: God's Cosmic and Relational Values; The Ecological Covenant of Relationality [Noah]; Divine Image and Dominion as Responsible Representation; The Incarnation as Cosmic Representation; Sacramental Presence of the Spirit;

5. FIRM FOUNDATIONS: Doctrines of Sin, Judgment, Redemption, and Church

Sin as an Ecological Disorder; Divine Judgments in Natural History; Consummation as Cosmic Redemption; The Church as Agent of Ecological Liberation and Reconcilation; A Summation;

6. LOVING NATURE: Christian Love in an Ecological Context.

Love: The Ground of Christian Theology and Ethics; Dilemmas of Definition; Love and Predation; Qualifications of Ecological Love; Ecological Dimensions of Love;

7. LOVE AS ECOLOGICAL JUSTICE: Rights and Responsibilities

Biblical Bases for Justice; Love and Justice; Meaning and Justice; Rights and Justice; Human Environmental Rights; Biotic Rights; Boundries of Biotic Rights; Individuals and Collectives; A Bill of Biotic Rights; Primae Facie Biotic Rights; Conclusion

8. POLITICAL DIRECTIONS FOR ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY

Politics in Ethical Perspective; Resolving the Economics-Ecology Dilemma; Regulatory Sufficiency; Responsibilities to Future Generations; The Guardianship of Biodiversity; International Cooperation for Ecological Security; Linking Justice, Peace, and Ecology; Finally

NOTES

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Submitted by Laurie J. Braaten, Professor of Old Testament, Judson College.

Sorry it is out of print. it is not only an insightful account of ecological responsibility in light of theological understanding but also a practical guide to Wesleyan theology in particular. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in ecological issues.

This book speaks to more audiences than any other I've recently read.

It is, as advertised, a story about what "welfare reform" means in one state (Illinois.) But its a lot more. It is the story of one man's late mid-life crisis and how he tries to make the world a better place. (Would that Steve Forbes read this book and decided to do something with a better chance of paying off than run for president.) Its a "true story of people in inner city" Chicago in the tradition of Alex Kotlowitz and Nick Lehmann. But its also the story of the people who make up the rules faced by those real people: the street level bureaucrats who make the rules into "yes" and "no" answers, the senior bureaucrats who are between the street level bureaucrats and the legislators who make the decisions.

I especially liked having a state-level perspective on "how our laws are made." I haven't seen a book from a personal perspective as good as this since Eric Redman's "The Dance of Legislation." And its the first time I've seen one from a state-level perspective. (It will remind you all over again of why there is the adage: "Two things you don't want to see being made -- sausage and legislation.")

One of the happy lessons of the national welfare reform experiment is that the interests of the poor and the business community need not be at odds. Both business leaders and business practices have much to offer the reform effort. Gary MacDougal is a business leader who traveled far and worked doggedly to make his own powerfully constructive offer - and to make it concrete. In doing so, MacDougal belied the myth perpetuated by those who fret that business leaders poking around social welfare programs will focus only on cutting costs and will leave the poor stranded at the doors of shuttered programs. But that was not MacDougal's vision - far from it.

In the midst of a successful business career, MacDougal went to Nepal and came down from the mountain with a desire to make a difference. After selling his business, he was free of all of the usual agendas -- whether of the left, right, party politics, turf, personal business interests, or a bureaucracy to defend, and he decided to make his contribution by offering a governor his help in leading a human services reform effort. The Governor said thanks, and MacDougal went on to challenge seven entrenched bureaucracies, the legislature, providers, and the unions. His good listening ear allowed him to hear fully from the clients of the system, as well as all the other players as they described (and often defended) the jumbled mess that called itself human services delivery. His heart told him there had to be a better way to serve families. And his business experience and acumen told him that the other way would have to be a customer first model that coordinated and redesigned the system based on the perspectives and needs of the communities to be served.

His plan was adopted by Illinois, where he focused his efforts. It puts families first. It insists on seamless service delivery of services in a now-consolidated human services agency that he helped create shape. And his plan is grounded in a from-the-ground-up local systems design intended to respond to the unique needs of each community where services are delivered. Now that most welfare families with the fewest personal and social problems are working, other states would do well to look at MacDougal's model of coordinated service delivery to address the far more complex needs of those families who remain on welfare.

-- This by an attorney who has represented the poor for twenty years.

Too often, discussions of our welfare system are in an ideological context - the left or the right. In this splendid and highly readable book, Gary MacDougal shows that perhaps the too-long neglected pragmatic perspective is the most important.

As a citizen-volunteer, Mr. MacDougal led the Governor's task force charged with fundamentally restructuring the Illinois welfare system, which administers a highly fragmented hodge-podge of state- and federally-funded programs. To this assignment he brought unique qualifications: He is an experienced and successful business executive. However, unlike many businessmen, he had enough political exposure to understand how things get done in the public sector. He is also a leader in the human services philanthropic sector. Finally, he took the time to go where few policy makers go, to meet the welfare "customers," and to learn first hand what happens at every level of the welfare system.

Make no mistake about it, what Mr. MacDougal and his Illinois task force accomplished is truly historic. Over many decades, in the face of widely recognized flaws and inefficiencies in our welfare system, no other state has been able to implement such a far-reaching, systemic reform. They say that legislation (and government organization studies) are like sausage - watching either one of them being made is not a pretty sight. However, this compelling book is an engaging, even at times heart-warming saga that brings to life the complexities of government in the real world. Hopefully some readers will want to step up to be part of similar initiatives in their own states.

In the end, one can't help but conclude that Mr. MacDougal's triumph was basically a tenacious exercise in common sense (albeit at the highest professional level!). Which raises the question, why doesn't the American electorate demand this level of common sense in other areas of public policy, rather than fifteen-second sound bites?

This book helped me from beginning to end in my search for a nanny for my daughter. If you need to know how to begin a search, how to effectively interview a candidate and conduct a background search this book is for you! It has been an invaluable resource.

As a working woman that has raised 3 children, I can relate to the dilema that we as parents have in leaving our most precious possesions with someone whom we barely know, at least at first. We try our hardest to make smart, thorough and well researched choices so that we can go about our responsibilities guilt free and with comfort. Making Childcare Choices, guides us through all of the questions and organizing involved in hiring the appropriate care taker.

This book is an essential tool for parents who are looking for quality childcare. It is designed to teach parents everything they need to know to find, hire, train and keep the optimal type of childcare. Whether parents are looking for nannies, au pairs, babysitters, or the perfect child care center, this exciting new book covers the pros and cons of every available option. This book provides parents with the necessary steps to take so they can feel confident about the process of finding someone to nurture and care for their child. There is careful advice on avoiding conflicts, handling sticky situations, and terminating relationships. The need for someone else to help raise our children is growing constantly. This complete resource is invaluable to parents making one of the most important parenting decisions.

I had to read this book for a college history class I took 2 years ago and I felt that it was extremely detailed and informative. I was quite surprised by my reaction because I felt it was a great read whether or not you enjoy historical books.

Excellent review of how the Chicago Housing Authority, despite good intentions, ended up not only itself segregated, but reinforced existing housing segregation in the private market.

Hirsch actually takes a much broader view of his subject than public housing. Rather, he exp;ores the various ways public policy was manipulated (generally by commercial interests) to serve their own ends, and how those profit driven manipulations resulted in Chicago being one of America's most segregated cities. Ironically, the dramatic expansion of the Black Ghetto chronicalled by Hirsch occurred at the same time that the country was under seige by the forces of McCarthism...yet in Chicago, the commercial interests (lead by Marshall Field) had no compunction about seizing private property to serve their own ends.

Anyone who believes that neighborhoods are segregated because of private choices must read this book and learn the truth.

After reading The Hidden War,(which made extensive reference to Hirsch's book)I wanted a more detailed history about the creation of public housing as we know it to be in Chicago. This book gives detail of how the political,educational, civic organizations wanted to contain the burgeoning African American community which was growing during post world war II and the great migration years. The powerful in Chicago used government policies to maintain housing segregation...the powerless resorted to violence to keep African Americans out of neighborhoods...the results were the massive and bleak housing structures which are called public housing. This book not only talks about the historical wheelings and dealings of the white power structure, but it also gives insight into how the same tactics are being used today, to maintain certain class and racial segregation. This is a good companion must read along with The Hidden WARS.

This book is really a satire against Medicare. It is written from the perspective of one of the Devil's executives. This executive writes a memo (essentially the whole book) to his boss (The Devil) about how well Medicare is working out in their malevolent plan. I considered it very entertaining reading.

Professor David Hyman has used the seven deadly sins to serve up an easy to read description of the Medicare mess. His satirical approach is both amusing and on target. I think this small volume is required reading for both the layman and the expert. The book supplies a historical perspective, and provides a useful focus on the Medicare problem areas. I think this focus and fact driven perspective is essential, if the nation is to make any progress confounding Mephistopheles.

No ordinary survey, MEDICARE MEETS MEPHISTOPHELES takes the form of allegory, and is written as a memorandum from an underling demon to the devil himself. Devilish details demonstrate Medicare's pitfalls and the foundations that only undermine honesty and encourage greed and profiteering. In using satire as a vehicle for analysis, Hyman provides a biting analysis easy to digest.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I have refered to this medical book over ten times in my first two weeks of owning it. This book belongs on every mans night table. It is a must read for ever man. It covers all the important health issues that your own Doctor never discusses. Dr. Alcena has made it easy for every man to be educated and informed about his own body, and how it functions. I am giving this book to my closest male friends because they need to have this valuable tool at their bedsides, so they can be up to the minute on all mens health issues. Thank you Dr. Alcena

Dr. Alcena has written a truly extraordinary book, which is a gift to mankind. Dr. Alcena is a true medical genius, one of the most outstanding physicians, medical educator, clinician, and medical writer of our time. The book is written with clarity and both the medical community and the public will benefit from the discussions of conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, depression, drug addiction, high cholesterol, heart disease, anemia, COPD, arthritis, etc. This book MEN'S HEALTH AND WELLNESS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM belongs in everybody's home library as a reference book.

Once again, Dr. Alcena has given us - in his inimitable style - a sweeping survey of the most common ailments afflicting our husbands, fathers and sons today. The most commonly occurring medical condtions - from Hypertension to Depression - are described in clear, easily understandable, every-day terms. Due to its accessible language, tables and charts, this book makes a great reference, not only for the medical academia, but also the family library and coffee table. A great holiday gift for anyone.

For decades now, economic history has been deliberately suppressed in colleges and universities by a group of very deluded academics who worship Ayn Rand and her ideology of selfishness. Margaret ("There is no society") Thatcher and Alan (It's not my fault) Greenspan are among her devotees. Also known as the Chicago School, they launched their first major master plan using Pinochet in Chile in 1977 to overthrow the democratically elected socialist Allende (on 9/11 of that year, by the way. It was a disaster but they called it a success. (Mission Accomplished!) Various members of these minions went on to loot national currencies from Wall Street, and indoctrinate our country into a embracing selfish greed and gains at the unjust expense of others.

Then we were hoodwinked into NAFTA and CAFTA. Banks went national and credit was released from it's cage with no training. Extremely important and effective legislation from the 1930's that protected us by keeping separate the various components of financial and insurance worlds were repealed. Crazy hyper-leveraged financial instruments made unsustainable debt levels a game of hot potato. What is worse though is that we are being mentally manipulated and tricked by opposite-speak everywhere we turn. We are being deprived even of unambiguous language to describe economic and political subjects.

"Free Markets" are anything but democratic, or "free" for that matter. When we say we want to bring democracy to a country, we really mean forcing them to sell us their resources at pennies on the dollar and stripping the country of its assets. It doesn't matter, Democrat or Republican, "Wealth Creation" is really "Debt Creation," and both parties will strive to protect financial paper, no matter how inflationary, at the expense of productive capital and the general prosperity of all Americans except a very few. (Ralph Nader is the only candidate who has for 40 years demonstrated that he is capable of resisting the puppet strings of Wall Street, and by the way, he is on the ballot in 45 states, most likely including yours. You have no more excuses!!)

Joel Magnuson's work is one of the greatest steps I have seen toward restoring economic literacy to America. This is a marvelous text that is easy to read and understand without oversimplifying anything. He tears the curtain from the Wizard's booth and reveals the humbug of micro and macro economic mathmatics, among so many other things. He offers lists of questions to ask the Chicago School instructors in class as each subject comes up. If you like making your professors and instructors actually earn their share of the higher education booty, you will love this feature. It is also reasonably priced, unlike most college texts that are obscenely over-priced in their anything-but-free market bookstores.

Buy extra copies of this book. You will want to lend them out and give them away as I do.

This book is perhaps the best economics book I have ever read. It covers so much, is beautifully written and is just amazing. You'll learn so much from his work.

I am an economics major with a poly sci minor, and, this book is just so much macro/mirco concepts nothing has come close.

This book is the perfect counterbalance to mainstream economics. Magnuson provides real world information about the US economy and its history, and suggests ways to begin building real economic alternatives. The book contains much useful information and is accessible to people who have no background in economics. Mindful Economics is very informative and an interesting read.

Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life (Economic Learning and Social Evolution) combinds the theory of cultural evolution ala Boyd and Richerson (and Henrich et al) and the behavioral economy by people like Gintis, Bowles and Fehr. The book works further based on the theory - develops e.g. models for a better social policy etc.

Book discusses an issue which is very central for "being a human being" - co-operation. Book is very informative, very well written even if there are many writers with heterogenous background. Also after the book you kind of get more optimistic about the prospects of humananity.

I am without any formal education in antropology, biology and economics but have read "everything" by Boyd and Richerson - my understanding on economics is based on Microeconomics by Samuel Bowles.

The book was to me a good further reading after the Bowles Microeconomics book. But the book can be read even by someone who does not know about economics even that much as me. The book is not too formal - easy to read actually.

For several years now, a group of social scientists has been studying the human tendency to be socially fair rather than narrowly selfish. The editors of this volume--Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr--are among the stalwarts; others are found among the authors of the book's chapters.
The core of this long-running effort is Fehr's experiments with the ultimatum game, in which two people must share a sum of money (say, $10); Person A gets to propose a split, Person B can only accept or decline. Economists and politicians would expect every game to wind up with a $9.99/$0.01 split (or actually a 9-1 split, since bills are used), but in fact typical splits are more like 5-5 or 6-4, and in one place (Lamalera, Indonesia) people actually split something like 4-6, few A's ever claiming even half the money. This long-running set of experiments around the world adds to a vast, rapidly accumulating set of data showing that people are sociable, not "rational" in the folk-economic sense (i.e., dedicated solely to narrow material self-interest). The present book discusses the implications for economics and politics. If people are naturally concerned with fairness, narrowly economistic policies can be counterproductive; we all know cases of "crowding out," in which a material incentive actually makes people act worse, by crowding out moral incentives. If you reward people for being good, they will think it's all a cynical game, and will act worse. Punitive legislation to make people do what they do anyway (for moral reasons) is also counterproductive. Imagine what these realizations would do to American social policy.
The problem with this book is that it is too optimistic and upbeat. The downside of human sociability is confined to one page, late in the book (p. 388), where racism, honor killing, and the like get a quick mention. Alas, the morning radio brings a stream of accounts not only of such things but also of religious butchery all over the world--Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and even Buddhists (theoretically prohibited from killing but busily genocidal). This brings us back to Adam Smith's suggestion that greed may not be lovable but may be better than the noble, virtuous alternatives. I hope Gintis et al work on how to decouple fairness and interpersonal concern from the desire to exterminate everybody who is not in one's immediate social set. Until this is done, the hope purveyed in this work will remain thin.
The authors note that humans seem genetically programmed to have at least some sense of fairness and of self-sacrifice for the common good, but they wisely refrain from trying to unpack "hereditary" and "environmental" or "cultural" aspects. Heredity makes us do this, and learn it easily, and heredity gives us the ability to learn and develop cultures. No way to unpack. Still, more needs to be done on just how flexible these inborn moralities are. The range from Lamalera to certain parts of South America is pretty great. So is the range of murderousness in religious and ethnic settings. We need to know how to modify human behavior in these regards, and how much we can hope for.
That being said, this book is the best yet in the long list of books that devastate the selfish-individualist model of human behavior. People desperately want to be sociable, and be good members of their society. This may lead them to fairness and generosity, or to body-piercing, or to suicide bombing. This book offers hope for building new societies through use of innate human decency. At this point in time, any book seriously offering such hope is desirable.

This book is just really great. The literature on fairness and reciprocity in social science is growing fast, and this book is ideal to give you a flavour of why this is such a good thing. It is diverse, with entries ranging from biological models that attempt to explain the evolution of reciprocity, through the implications of reciprocity for the way legal sanctions work, to the political philosophy of the dark side of clan mentality.
Most readers will probably not want to read everything, and even less people will agree with everything. One needs to remember that a lot of the stuff in this book is still controversial, including the existence of (strong) reciprocity, but this is what makes it so very interesting. And if only half of what's in this book is right, it is still revolutionary.
In 10 years, this book will be terribly outdated. But for now, it is the best thing you can get if you are interested in the interplay between evolution, reciprocity and social order, and the fundamental questions of social science that it entails.

I pulled this book from my waiting stack after reviewing Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency While all that we do wrong is rooted in corrupt politics such as Dick Cheney represents so well, I wanted to get away from the personalities and focus on the underlying truths of the greatest challenge facing all of us, preserving the planet for future generations.

This thoughtful careful author from New Hampshire has created a really special book, small, readable, and packed with fact (superb footnotes). He gives all due credit to his predecessors in the field--Georgescu-Roegen, Meadows, Dalay, Hawken et al.

He brings out the nuances of complex systems and how our linear reductionist thinking, and our false assumption that technology will resolve our waste creation and earth consumption issues, combine to place all that we love at risk. I was personally surprised to learn that even if we fund 100 water desalination or decontamination plants, and resolve our shortfalls of clean water, that the energy required to do so would result in entropy and further losses.

The author brings up the need for better metrics (see my reviews of "Ecology of Commerce" and "Natural Capitalism" as well as my list on "True Cost" readings. He points out that the GDP does not reflect the non-cash economy or the degree of equality/inequality in the distribution of new wealth. I would add to that the importance of counting prisons and hospitals as negatives rather than positives.

A good portion of the book (a chapter for each) is spent discussion the three fundamentals: the limits to growth; the second law of thermodynamics (entropy); and the nuances of self-organization and what happens when you reduce diversity.

The author lists the attributes of complex systems as being emergent properties that arise from the interactions (i.e. the space between the objects); self-organization, nestedness, and bifurcation into either positive or negative consequences.

The bottom line for the first part of the book is that in complex systems, especially complex systems for which we have a very incomplete and imperfect understanding, "control" is a myth, just as "progress" is a myth if you are consuming your seed corn.

The author excels at a review of the literature and demonstrating the flaws of economic theories that are divorced from reality and the "true cost" of goods and services (e.g. a T-shirt holds 4000 liters of virtual water, a chesseburger 6.5 gallons of fuel).

I have reviewed a number of books on climate change, in this book the author makes the very important point that the annual cost of weather disasters has been steadily increasing, and is the annual hidden "tax" on our reductionist approach to clearing the earth, losing the forests and mashlands, and so on.

He points out that concealing or ignoring true cost does not make it any less true, it simply passes the cost on to future generations. In the same vein he is optemistic in that he believes that if we take positive action now, however small, the benefits of that action as the years scale out, will be enormous.

This is actually an upbeat book for two reasons: first, it makes it crystal clear that the classical economics that have allowed corporations to pilage the world, bribe dictators and other elites, and generally harvest profit at the expense of the commonwealth; and second, it ends on a note of hope, on the belief that we may be approaching a dramatic cultural shift that embraces reciprocal altruism, true cost calculations, equitable wealth distribution, and so on.

He cites other authors but gives very positive insights into public ownership (by stakeholders, not the government), essentially repealing the flawed court-awarded "personality" of corporations, and re-connecting every entity to its land-base and the people it serves. He recommends, and I am buying, David Korten's "Post-Corporate World." By restoring the populace to the decision process, we stamp down the greed that can flourish in isolation.

The book ends hoping for a cultural shift from consumption to connection. I believe it is coming. Serious games/games for change, fed by real-world real-time content from public intelligence providers including the vast social networks from Wikipedia to MeetOn to the Moral Majority, could great a wonderfully distributed system of informed democratic governance that implements what I call "reality-based budgeting," budgeting that is transparent, accountable, and balanced.

This is a much more important book than its size and length might suggest. It is beikng read by and was recommended to me by some heavy hitters in the strategic thinking realm, and I am disappointed at the lack of reviews thus far. This book merits broad reading and discussion.

See also:
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen

This will no doubt be one of those rare books I read over and over again. If you believe that profligacy holds empty promises; that we are spiralling on a downward course of natural resource depletion and want to go out into the world armed with a message of hope inspired by nature and supported by scientific principle then this is the book for you.

Tom Wessels uses excellent examples to support his arguments in Myth of Progress. He has a writing style that is fluid, understandable, enjoyable, and uplifting. If more people read this book we would be on our way to a sustainable future with an environmental ethic.