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The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization

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From Publishers Weekly

With easy-to-understand terminology and a mountain of research, Toronto author Homer-Dixon (The Ingenuity Gap) faces down imminent, unavoidable and catastrophic threats to modern civilization, keeping a wary eye on mankind's chances to adapt. Methodically illustrating how the modern world is doomed to suffer a large-scale breakdown, Homer-Dixon enumerates the "tectonic stresses" on civilization-population growth disparities, energy scarcity, environmental damage, and economic instabilities-and the "multipliers"-increasing global connectivity and small groups' ability to enact destruction-that help propel them. Woven throughout are well-illustrated comparisons between the current state of industrialized nations-especially the U.S.-with the unsustainable complexities, and subsequent downfall, of the Roman Empire. With each page, humanity's situation seems more dire, but Homer-Dixon argues that the force of "catagenesis"-the "commonplace occurrence of renewal through breakdown"-means that good will come from the collapse of civilization as we know it. Unfortunately, he offers few practical suggestions as to how we can prepare for civilization's inevitable failure, and little evidence on which to hang hope. As a result, the book takes on a tone of doomsday prophecy directly at odds with its title. Where Homer-Dixon succeeds admirably is in explaining exactly why modern stresses are so worrisome and the outcomes that neglect could cause.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Review

"Thomas Homer-Dixon [is] one of the best-informed and most brilliant writers on global affairs today." (The Guardian)"Homer-Dixon succeeds admirably…in explaining exactly why modern stresses are so worrisome and the outcome that neglect could cause." (Publishers Weekly)"Anyone who wants to get serious about the defense of civilization had better read The Upside of Down." (James Howard Kunstler author of The Long Emergency and The Geography of Nowhere)"For over a decade, Thomas Homer-Dixon has provided that rare thing: a bridge between leading-edge research and the lay reader. Now, addressing the greatest problems of our time, he points us towards a path forward." (Robert D. Kaplan author of Imperial Grunts and Balkan Ghosts)"Anyone who doubts the seriousness of the human predicament should read Thomas Homer-Dixon's brilliant The Upside of Down. Anyone who understands the seriousness should also read it for Homer-Dixon's insightful ideas about how to make society more resilient in the face of near inevitable environmental and social catastrophes." (Paul R. Ehrlich coauthor of One with Ninevah: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future)"2006 Gold Medal Winner: Political Science Book of the Year" (CHOICE)

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Product details

Hardcover: 448 pages

Publisher: Island Press; 1st Edition edition (November 1, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1597260649

ISBN-13: 978-1597260640

Product Dimensions:

6.4 x 1.4 x 9.5 inches

Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.0 out of 5 stars

36 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#1,092,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Even though this book was written in 2006 it still seems quite relevant to me. It's not that we don't know all the bad news in the world; it's just that it has not been laid out in such a devastatingly organized way as Canadian Homer-Dixon does. The five major stresses where he expects breakdown to occur are: population, energy, environment, climate, and economic. Most of these spring from our troubled relationship with nature, which public leaders are doing little to change. He spends a chapter on each of these stresses and lays out in gory detail how catastrophe can come about. (This is not a book for the faint-hearted.) But surprisingly, his book, as you see from the title, is hopeful. His point is to help us recognize the signs, prepare for breakdown, and "exploit the opportunities." He believes that, even though breakdown can hurt many people, it can also shatter the forces standing in the way of change. One thing that appears certain: constant change and surprise are now inevitable. The first step toward a creative response is to move from denial that it will happen. When we deny our problems, we can't choose our future. And our future lies in the creative renewal of every aspect of our lives in the aftermath of breakdown. Homer-Dixon's advice is that we do four things, which he describes in detail: 1) reduce the force of the 5 stresses to lower the risk of synchronous failure, 2) cultivate a prospective mind that can cope better with surprise, 3) boost the overall resilience of our energy, food supply, and other networks, and 4) prepare to turn breakdown to our advantage when it happens. Key to all this is building communities of like-minded people who can work together and are bound by trust.

Interesting career memoir of an entrepreneur and former Greenpeace leader, that helps provide a sense of what's at stake in climate change, and how diverse are the contributors and processes.I have one big objection to the prediction that we will overcome climate change. The author continually turns to the analogy of WWII as a time when whole societies sacrificed for the common good, uniting across even across national boundaries. Selflessness will save us from climate change when, somehow magically, we finally all understand, and the "dam of denial" bursts. All the necessary changes will still be possible.How is this magic supposed to happen? No one one knows, but it must, because otherwise we're doomed, and we can't be doomed.A much better analogy would be the Great Depression, when the Dust Bowl helped trigger financial collapse, and societies around the world were simply unable to cope. The situation deteriorated into WWII, at which point extreme resource exploitation (e.g., the East Texas Oilfield) allowed the U.S., with the assistance of the UK, to cut off German and Japanese access to Middle Eastern and South East Asian oilfields, and win the war. Not the only factors, but critical. Now fire, famine, flood, drought & storm again weaken societies that can't cope. Wars deluge Europe with immigrants. More of this is on the way. Resources around the world are stretched thin by a population approaching 10 billion. Maybe there's a technology miracle coming we haven't foreseen. Maybe not. Civilizations have collapsed before.

As I read this book I was reminded of Paul Kennedy's 1993 book "Preparing for the 21st Century." Like Kennedy and other authors in recent decades, Homer-Dixon assesses major global problems and trends with an eye toward how such stresses have converged throughout human history to cause breakdown or collapse of whole societies. The "tectonic stresses" he identifies are: Population stress (megacities; differing rich/poor growth rates) Energy stress (especially from scarcity of oil) Environmental stress (land, water, forests, fisheries) Climate stress (atmosphere) Economic stress (instability; widening income gaps)None of this is surprising, having been identified elsewhere in the literature at least as far back as the 1972 study "Limits to Growth" by the Club of Rome. But the author eloquently lays out the scenarios, makes historical analogies, and explains the interplay between the stresses in language that concerned citizens, and even policy-makers, can understand. This in itself is a great service to the reader.Like Kennedy, Homer-Dixon will be criticized for not sufficiently addressing solutions to these problems. Indeed, the "upside" in his title doesn't really manifest itself until about the last 50 pages of the book, and some readers may find what's offered to be inadequate. His solutions should be common sense (which can be uncommon in complex societies): design for resilience, be prepared to make the best of change. His belief that endless economic growth is overrated and even detrimental will not please everyone. And part of his argument is that collapse is probably inevitable, so we should strive to emerge from the disaster as good or better than we were before. Not the most encouraging pep talk - try not to think about your children and grandchildren when you read this.The author seems to be anticipating that some kind of breakdown having ripple effects across the world will occur somewhere between a few years from now and mid-century. Energy, which he calls "our master resource," seems to be his favorite choice as the primary culprit, which makes sense from today's perspective.I selected this book because for the past few years, I've been trying to absorb as much wisdom as possible about the globalization phenomenon. The book definitely comes down on the skeptical side of what the author calls "globalized capitalism." Of the books I've read on this side of the argument, this one is probably the most balanced, well-written, and non-accusatory. If you can handle depressing news, and you care about what direction the globalization era will take in the next few decades, this is a very worthwhile read.

This book is a very good introduction to vulnerabilities of our complex society. There are many challenges ahead of us from peak oil to climate change. Homer-Dixon's message is that the complex society we have build is prone to collapse if we don't act wisely. This book is even more timely nowadays than it was when it was written.

A key point: "in any complex adaptive system, breakdown, if limited, can be a key part of that system's long-term resilience and renewal."

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