The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler
Sorry I haven't posted in a while - work and life in general has been busy this past month.
I did manage, however, to read The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, by James Howard Kunstler (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005, ISBN 0-87113-888-3, hardbound, 307+ pages)
I won't provide a huge review of the book, as there is plenty there (and others have reviewed it more thoroughly). But I will heartily recommend it. It costs $23 at Borders, and can be found through Amazon.com for much less.
The book, which focuses on Peak Oil and the world that is coming tomorrow, particularly in the U.S. context, is a natural follow-on to his three early books regarding the wastefulness of suburbanization. (The early books are The Geography of Nowhere, Home from Nowhere, and The City in Mind.) As expected, suburbanization plays a big role in this new book as well, as that is one of the areas, geographically speaking, where we will see first some of the implications of running out of cheap oil, as those areas were created since the 1920s (and earnestly since the 1950s) as the result of low-cost oil. Kunstler makes very clear the travesty that the U.S. has created (as opposed to Europeans and other societies with more compact cities) by this very expensive "public" (whether Federally funded or not) project.
Short of buying the book, to get a good feel for what is said in The Long Emergency, take a look at these speeches and articles by Kunstler, which all contain material extracted from the book:
I heartily recommend the book. I've read it twice now. While I didn't necessarily learn any more than I already knew, I still appreciate Kunstler's way to summarize and tie together many items. He gets wordy at time (some of his historical material is probably longer than really needed), but those sections can be skimmed fairly quickly if needed. In fact I'd recommend that you do what I did - skim the book once through, and then, after a week or two break, go back and read it again in detail. That way you aren't shocked or put off necessarily by what he says and you have time to let it sink in.
Bye for now...
Kevin Anderson
Dubuque, Iowa
I did manage, however, to read The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, by James Howard Kunstler (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005, ISBN 0-87113-888-3, hardbound, 307+ pages)
I won't provide a huge review of the book, as there is plenty there (and others have reviewed it more thoroughly). But I will heartily recommend it. It costs $23 at Borders, and can be found through Amazon.com for much less.
The book, which focuses on Peak Oil and the world that is coming tomorrow, particularly in the U.S. context, is a natural follow-on to his three early books regarding the wastefulness of suburbanization. (The early books are The Geography of Nowhere, Home from Nowhere, and The City in Mind.) As expected, suburbanization plays a big role in this new book as well, as that is one of the areas, geographically speaking, where we will see first some of the implications of running out of cheap oil, as those areas were created since the 1920s (and earnestly since the 1950s) as the result of low-cost oil. Kunstler makes very clear the travesty that the U.S. has created (as opposed to Europeans and other societies with more compact cities) by this very expensive "public" (whether Federally funded or not) project.
Short of buying the book, to get a good feel for what is said in The Long Emergency, take a look at these speeches and articles by Kunstler, which all contain material extracted from the book:
- A March 2005 article in The Rolling Stone (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7203633?rnd=1128715762031&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1059)
- A speech at PetroCollapse in New York City (http://www.kunstler.com/spch_petrocollapse.html)
- A January 2005 talk in Hudson, New York (http://www.kunstler.com/spch_hudson.htm)
I heartily recommend the book. I've read it twice now. While I didn't necessarily learn any more than I already knew, I still appreciate Kunstler's way to summarize and tie together many items. He gets wordy at time (some of his historical material is probably longer than really needed), but those sections can be skimmed fairly quickly if needed. In fact I'd recommend that you do what I did - skim the book once through, and then, after a week or two break, go back and read it again in detail. That way you aren't shocked or put off necessarily by what he says and you have time to let it sink in.
Bye for now...
Kevin Anderson
Dubuque, Iowa
posted by Kevin Anderson K9IUA at 5:40 PM
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