[Zarquon]

The End of More, by Norman Pagett and Josephine Smit
http://www.endofmore.com/

"Our chances of survival are being destroyed by overconsumption. In The End of More, Josephine Smit and Norman Pagett explore the history that has brought us to that point, and give us a glimpse of the devastating consequences of our actions."

I picked this up for a tenner on Amazon, thinking it might contain a useful analysis of the resource crunch that might or might not be ahead. Peak oil, peak water, peak phosphorus, peak population, you name it. All difficult topics to tackle and a book laying out the facts for the uninitiated would be quite useful to have. Unfortunately, this is not it, so I'll keep my review short.

The 227-page book, probably named with "The End of Growth" in mind, deals with the coming energy shortage, overpopulation and our unsustainable food system. In between, it briefly touches things like the history of the Middle East, development of modern sewage systems, unsustainable cities, resource wars, agribusinesses from rich countries gobbling up land in starving countries for food exports etc. All important topics, with potentially enormous problems waiting on the road ahead and obviously all connected. I remember seeing Albert Bartlett's famous presentation on growth on YouTube and thought this book might expand on the topic.

The problem is that the book begins with the conclusion that the oil will be gone soon, renewables can't take its place and therefore the collapse is inevitable. The rest follows: back to the Middle Ages. And if think you've heard all that before, it's because you can't read PO.com for more than a week without having read it all before. Actually, you could write a book like this by distilling "doomer" posts from this very site. Just put them in the right chapter, polish them a little, insert a few quickly googled quotes from somebody famous, and presto.

I won't deny that the book contains a few interesting tidbits I didn't know before, but that didn't make reading it worthwhile. It deals briefly with dozens of big issues and thus provides thorough analysis - or any analysis at all - on none. Basically, it's been written for those who already count themselves among the true believers in collapse, people who need to see their fears put in print. If you're an agnostic on peak-everything but want to know more about the actual facts and relationships so you can make up your own mind, this book is useless. And if you're a "doomer", you can save your ten bucks and read the relevant threads on these topics right here.

Finally, the book is a real, printed softcover, but it's more a self-published pamphlet in the sense that it was probably a long Word Document sent to Amazon Fulfillment; they printed it and sell it now. It's full of paragraphs where the formatting fails, some questionable spelling and typos. There is no index, no bibliography, and they don't list any sources. That would have taken time. They obviously didn't have an editor, and when you've read the book, you can guess why.

The only funny thing about it is that they correctly warn of the return of superstition when things start to fall apart, but don't realize they fall into the same trap as religious people: they begin with the conclusion and then take it from there.

[MaqFot]

Since the new book has come out with all the homilies in one volume, I do not see the point of St. Tikhons printing the 3 volume set.
Since I have a copy of the new book, the value of the old Volume One goes down to maybe 10. I have already had someone offer to me a free copy of Vol. One.
But thanks for asking.
You do not want to keep it and read it? Was it not useful for you?

[bellawatson492]

I haven't read this book, but after reading your post I am thinking to buy it.