Book Description
An electrifying memoir from the acclaimed Nicaraguan writer (“A wonderfully free and original talent”—Harold Pinter) and central figure in the Sandinista Revolution.
Until her early twenties, Gioconda Belli inhabited an upper-class cocoon: sheltered from the poverty in Managua in a world of country clubs and debutante balls; educated abroad; early marriage and motherhood. But in 1970, everything changed. Her growing dissatisfaction with domestic life, and a blossoming awareness of the social inequities in Nicaragua, led her to join the Sandinistas, then a burgeoning but still hidden organization. She would be involved with them over the next twenty years at the highest, and often most dangerous, levels.
Her memoir is both a revelatory insider’s account of the Revolution and a vivid, intensely felt story about coming of age under extraordinary circumstances. Belli writes with both striking lyricism and candor about her personal and political lives: about her family, her children, the men in her life; about her poetry; about the dichotomies between her birth-right and the life she chose for herself; about the failures and triumphs of the Revolution; about her current life, divided between California (with her American husband and their children) and Nicaragua; and about her sustained and sustaining passion for her country and its people.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
beautiful.......2007-08-31
i savored this book for months before i finally allowed myself to read the final chapters. she writes so lyrically and with such passion and imagery, yet without an abundance of superflous words. i read this while traveling through nicaragua and enjoyed every word of it.
This Book Touched Me In So Many Ways.......2007-07-25
It's hard to know how to start writing about Gioconda Belli's autobiography, The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War, since it reached and touched me in so many ways.
This is the story of a woman, a mother, a revolutionary fighter, now living in Santa Monica, who used to wear a machine gun as a part of her JOB!
To read the life story of a contemporary, of my generation, who has done so much, lived with such vivacity and courage and passion is truly an inspiration. To see the USA through the eyes of someone who fought against a cruel, murderous, ugly dictator, only to have a right wing American president, Ronald Reagan, use all the power within his reach to destroy the fruits of her people's struggle for democracy-- is eye-opening.
Gioconda Belli weaves a story of intrigue, power, politics and sensuality that had me turning the pages like, usually, only the best potboiler fiction novel can do. It is a testimony to women's rights the way she functioned as a Sandinista revolutionary while bearing three children, raising a family and taking down the Somoza dictatorship, becoming an award winning writer-poet and traveling the world as a diplomat-representative of the revolutionary government she played a major role of bringing into power.
As an activist writer, publisher in the USA, (of the website opednews) this book came to me as an amazing wake-up call, demonstrating the many ways a people who are fighting a corrupt, malignant government and its leaders can tackle the challenge of taking control of the nation.
We in the USA who are fighting against those who are unraveling the constitution and democracy would do well to read and learn from Gioconda Belli. The steps she took as she became more politicized, more involved in the fight against the rich and powerful who would strip the rights and freedoms from her people are steps many of us have just begun to take. The courage and sacrifice she describes in her own life and the lives of her "companeros" is inspiring.
Reading about her experiences meeting with other revolutionaries, how different nations actually celebrate them and their fights for freedom, was a real eye-opener. Why doesn't the US honor the heroic men and women with the courage to take on the worst dictators? Because, too often, we are supporting and funding them? This must end. It is time that we invite the leaders of revolutions from all over the world to the US. Of course, for that reality to happen, there must be a revolution of some sort in the US-- one that rejects corporatism and the run-amuck out of control capitalism that the USA's lamestream media have sold us over the years.
While this is a book, that for me, was inspiring at many levels, one should not forget that Belli is an award winning poet and writer with many international awards for her work. The book is a pleasure to read. It will make you laugh and bring you tears of joy and sadness. It did for me.
The book was not one I'd have ever picked up on my own. It was recommended to me... strongly. I pass that recommendation forward to you. Give it a try. You won't be able to put it down.
Can be read on three levels.......2007-04-21
"The Country Under My Skin" is a courageous autobiography--a deeply personal "Memoir of Love and War." The author, Gioconda Belli, is a famous Latin American poet and Sandinista revolutionary.
This memoir can be read on three levels.
For those who love revolutionary or social history, Belli's memoir gives a unique female insider's perspective on the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. Many past reviewers, apparently men, seem to approach this book with this historical dimension squarely in focus. Understandably, some are disappointed by the unusual female perspective. However, as a woman, I was overjoyed to find a dangerous real life story of revolution from a woman's point of view.
"I stole across the room to open the door of my daughters' room. I stood there for what must have been a long time, watching their peaceful faces as they slept in their orange-colored beds. Melissa with her pacifier and Maryam with her arms wide open. If only I could take them back into my womb to shelter them. I wanted a womb to hide in with them, the warm safety of the amniotic fluid. At least Nicaragua wasn't like Argentina, or Chile, where the dictatorships tortured and killed children along with their parents. I didn't fear for their lives--what I feared was the idea of them being left all alone. Did I have any right, as a mother, to take such risks?...But my fate was sealed. Inside of me there wasn't the slightest impulse to turn back. A threat like this, in fact, had the opposite effect: it fed the rage I felt for the dictatorship, for a system against which we, the citizens, had no form of defense...Then and there, I vowed to myself that I wouldn't allow fear to turn me into a passive observer of all the ills and injustices that surrounded me" (p. 77-78).
For those who love romance, Belli's book is overflowing with deep, heart-felt emotion--passion for country, passion for life, passion for children, passion for family, passion for community, passion for cause, and naturally, passion for the many powerful and famous revoluntionary men in her life. She reveals in heart-wrenching clarity how her lovers possessed her, and failed her, and how she idealized them, and failed them.
"So we kissed, gasping with so much want as we had been painfully holding up. But when he tried to go after my shirt, my skirt, I stopped his hands. I buried by head on his chest, hushing him, telling him it would be better if we tried to stay put. Let's not go any further, I said. You better talk to me, talk to me about what you've been doing. My heart was beating fast and hard, and a fire from hell was burning my cheeks" (p. 200).
For those who love to analyze the inner psychological workings of a human life, Belli's book is an intensely revealing coming of age saga--here, Belli's purpose is clearly not to glorify, but rather, through the act of writing, to discover and comes to terms with the woman she is today. For this reader, it became very clear that Belli is one of those glorious persons of rare artistic temperament who is "Touched with Fire" (see Kay Redfield Jamison's book by the same title). As I read this book, I ached for Belli's pain, and felt my heart soar with her joy and courage.
"To me, poetry was a gift. It was water flowing from a spring within me, that channeled onto the page, effortlessly. I also thought of it as energy produced by an unseen organ in my body--a sensory antenna, perhaps, that would capture aromas, feelings, sensations, and every so often would release a flash of illunimation. If I had paper, pen, and silence at hand when the first verse broke into my consciousness, that thunderbolt would ignite a poem" (p. 182).
"I wrote. I wrote poems of love and songs of desperation. I became so depressed that some days I couldn't get out of bed" (p. 290).
"I didn't know how to be alone. I had exposed myself to bullets, death; I had smuggled weapons, given speeches, received awards, had children--so many things, but a life without men, without love, was alien to me, I felt I had no existence unless a man's voice said my name and a man's love rendered my life worthwile. It was not a question of denying men a role in my life, but I was determined to stop being emotionally dependent on them. I forced myself to examine my vulnerabilities: I had filled a raw emotional void, tried to make up for affection I had lacked, by asserting myself and my femininity mostly though my sexuality and my powers of seduction, ignoring and underestimating my other gifts. I thought nothing of my tenacity, or my optimism...I also understood that I loved my children, but only as reflections, only in two dimensions, as if they were just simple, sweet creatures, and I could not see that below the surface they too had fears, complexities" (p. 290).
It was so easy to love this book. "The Country Under My Skin" is well-crafted, often poetic, and reads better than most novels. When I finished it, I felt a deep emotional bond with Belli. What a courageous and beautiful soul she is!
Behind-the-scenes of the Nicaraguan Revolution.......2007-01-05
For those interested in Central American history, this book is a fascinating read. After a recent visit to Nicaragua I was eager to learn more about this country and its tragic history. This book filled in the gaps of my understanding and gave me a fascinating glimpse into the Nicaraguan Revolution through the eyes of a woman.
The memoir, as told by Gioconda Belli, is a brave tale of a woman who holds strong to her dedication to overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship, despite infinite dangers to herself and her family. Famous figures such as Fidel Castro, the Ortega brothers and Carlos Fonseca make appearances in the story. The author shattered my illusion that the revolution was lead by peasants and the lower-class. Belli herself was a upper-class socialite with all the privileges of her status, before dedicating her life to the revolution.
In addition to her activism in politics and social struggle, Belli is a poet. The book gives an insider's view of the the Nicaraguan arts scene and the role of Nicaraguan poets in fueling the revolution.
Very well-written book, can't say much about its substance........2007-01-03
A woman's "diary" about how she came to risk her life and family for her own Sandinista "ideals" and sexual/feminist liberation. Great summary of Nicaragua's history. She came out to seem to be a selfish romantic and not the smart woman I thought she would be.
Book Description
A beautifully written, courageous memoir of a wartime childhood behind enemy lines. (SEE QUOTES. Use #2 if not too long.)
Customer Reviews:
Stories from WWII.......2007-05-10
This is a marvelous book and makes for fascinating reading. Gave me pause to reflect and wonder if I would have the strength to endure a similar hadrship. WWII was such a long time ago and it shaped the lives of so many people around the world. It is great that there are some really worthy movies available to educate the young people about sacrifices made by their grandparents (I should say great-grandparents) generation.
Stranded by War .......2007-02-26
When the Japanese invaded the Philippines in World War II most American soldiers and civilians surrendered. A few took to the hills and spent the war years as guerillas or simply hiding out from the Japanese. The author was an eight year old child during the war, the daughter of an American couple managing a gold mine on the island of Mindanao. They chose to live in the jungle and evade the Japanese. They didn't have any thrilling adventures, but the description of their day-to-day life is vivid and interesting.
The author doesn't pull any punches about her experiences. Neither of her parents are sympathetic people, nor are many of the other characters. She tells us of being sexually molested by an older boy. She gives us a picture of the stress the fugitives were under from the standpoint of a young girl.
One of the interesting aspects of the book was the almost-total separation of foreigner and Filipino before the war. The foreigners, mostly Americans, were unfamiliar even with Filipino food. Western men who married Filipino women were outcasts and the social and cultural separation of the cultures was almost complete. The automatic assumption by Americans and Europeans of the superiority of their cultures has broken down in part over the last half-century -- and that's a good thing.
As a true and true-to-life story of people uprooted by war, this is one of the best you will find.
Smallchief
Interesting WWII story.......2003-05-05
A child in remote Phillipines at the outbreak of the ware. The author leans heavily on her mother's diary for material.
WW II -- UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL.......2003-04-18
Ms Maynard reaches a long way back into her memory to bring us this absorbing tale of a family forced to hide in the jungle on Mindanao when World War II broke out. The Japanese took over the Philippines, leaving nine-year old Mary McKay, her parents and a brother away at boarding school, stranded. With the American Pacific fleet sunk at Pearl Harbor, General McArthurýs advice that Americans were in no danger turned out to be very wrong. McArthur was a stockholder in Mindanao Mother Lode, a mining operation where the authorýs father worked. From a comfortable existence with servants to cook their meals and wash their clothes, this family had to flee to another inactive mining camp well into the interior of the island, where they were further from the Japanese soldiers now swarming over the coastal areas.
Other families in the same situation lived with them at Gomoco, a gold mining camp that consisted of a few rickety buildings with a little stream flowing by. That stream became a river as it flowed to the coast, but boats could not navigate through the shallow water near the camp. Maryýs father was in charge of the collection of people who came and went over a two year period, and he presided over numerous arguments, often over whether to use more of the canned food or (as Mr. McKay thought) to preserve it for the even tougher times that might come.
In the end, the family is rescued by an American submarine that took them aboard to share the tight quarters with sailors, dodging Japanese ships as they made their way to Darwin, Australia. Maryýs brother Bob spent the years in internment camps and was rescued from a prison in Manila when the Americans finally came and took back the Philippines. General McArthur kept his promise to come back.
The book includes snatches of Maryýs motherýs diary which she kept during the years of hiding. I suspect this was the main source of information from so long ago, although surely a girl who lived through so much peril and fear would not forget these events. But research and that diary must have supplied many of the details. Mary gives us interesting glimpses into the complicated relationship of her parents -- a father who could not understand his wifeýs need for comfort and reassurance, and a mother who begged her Filipino suppliers to find lipstick, believing that putting on a good face could hide her fears. The author also is willing to deal with the lopsided relationship between the Americans and the hard-working and loyal Filipinos, who did most of the work of keeping the foreigners fed and safe. That did not keep the Americans from feeling superior or making fun of the ýpigeon Englishý spoken by the natives. It took many more years of living for the author to see how insensitive and ungrateful were these actions.
I found the story pulled me in as I read, and I wanted to find out what new problems would appear and to learn how this family would finally found their way back home, whatever ýhomeý had come to mean to them. Once Mindanao ýfellý they had to decide whether to give themselves up (as the Japanese demanded of all Americans) or to continue to try to evade notice. Eventually enough servicemen and civilians who did not surrender themselves were able to put together an organized guerilla action to provide mutual support, harass the Japanese and keep in contact with American military forces fighting the war. That led to the submarine rescue and the end of the book, an interesting story from a time soon to be relegated to history books as memories fade completely and the story tellers are with us no more. This book is a rare opportunity to see the war from a new perspective, through the eyes of a child who experienced the disruption and terror of war up close and personal.
evocative and insightful.......2002-02-04
I learned about this book from my high school alumni web page and read it mostly out of curiousity. A fascinating book, a coming-of-age tale of a young girl in wartime. I so appreciated the author's skillful melding of her childish observations and her retrospective adult understanding of this difficult period of her life. She unflinchingly, and often humorously, describes the colonial prejudices of her parents and other Americans in their small community, their condescension toward Filipinos and Filipino-American mestizos, the tensions arising from a basic incompatibility between her parents, their strained relations with other fugitives from the war, and even a sexual assault. What makes the book so special, beyond its extraordinary tale, is the author's mature and sensitive handling of the subject matter. She owns up to her own failings and seeks to understand and forgive those of others, without condoning bad behavior. As an expatriate child in the Philippines (more than 20 years ago), I too felt superior to and made fun of the locals and am now heartily ashamed of it. Just as it took age and distance to fully appreciate my family, I can now admit to my love for the Philippines and her peoples. Our situations were so different, nevertheless McKay's words resonated strongly for me and inspire me to seek to develop even a fraction of her graciousness.
I highly recommend this book.
Book Description
Samir Amin's ambitious new book argues that the ongoing American project to dominate the world through military force has its roots in European liberalism, but has developed certain features of liberal ideology in a new and uniquely dangerous way. Where European political culture since the French Revolution has given a central place to values of equality, the American state has developed to serve the interests of capital alone, and is now exporting this model throughout the world. American imperialism, Amin argues, will be far more barbaric than earlier forms of imperialism, pillaging natural resources and destroying the lives of the poor.
The Liberal Virus examines the ways in which the American model is being imposed on the world, and outlines its economic and political consequences. It shows how both citizenship and class consciousness are diluted in "low-intensity democracy" and argues instead for democratization as an ongoing process—of fundamental importance for human progress—rather than a fixed constitutional formula designed to support the logic of capital accumulation.
In a panoramic overview, Amin examines the objectives and outcomes of American policy in the different regions of the world. He concludes by outlining the challenges faced by those resisting the American project today: redefining European liberalism on the basis of a new compromise between capital and labor, re-establishing solidarity among the people of the South, and reconstructing an internationalism that serves the interests of regions that are currently divided against each other.
Customer Reviews:
Short, powerful, needed.......2007-04-01
Short, powerful, needed basis for revised thinking and debate whatever your views.
Americans deny living in a bubble subject to dogma and "free market fundamentalism".
This dynamite essay but one of the great and influential economists of the century who is thoroughly acquainted with the third world, Europe, and the historical context of post war American power should be read and discussed whatever one's views. This is not the Economics 101 of college or business school. Worse, it is not the stuff of active intellectual debate in this arrogant superpower.
It is an essay of 112 pages of text that is a damning critique of American hegemony and its politics and economics. No "warts and all" - more like all warts. The hegemony sustained by militarism and intimidation relies on smoke and mirrors - foreign capital and pillage sustaining a weak and dependent economy of self deception and manipulation.
Specific contrasts showing the immense price paid by people generally here (twice the cost for privatized health that is not better than Europe's provision of care) and unsustainable pauperization of some 3 billion peasants for the benefit of industrialized agriculture employing very few indeed. World wide shantytowns, increased poverty, and disposing of a social contract at home all follow. The only productive and competitive sector is military - which is not based on free market economics - and the US is the biggest arms dealer. Increased economic inequality drives the decline of democracy towards oligarchy and fascist like coordination of industry and ruling classes co-opting masses with chauvinism.
The world needs to break this sick system before it pauperizes the rest of the world and destroys all possibility of peace as well as resources and the environment. (The recent BBC poll placing the USA and Israel together with small time North Korea and Iran as threats to be feared shows growing awareness of reality denied by most Americans sheltered from foreign opinion and news and pablum fed by mall bookstores and profit fed publishing little interested in new ideas.)
There is much more to be considered in this book, only a brief taste is summarized here. The final section briefly lists hypotheses and ways that the world might possibly move beyond destructive American hegemony before the point of no return.
The Self Indulgent Virus, A Hindrance to the Debate.......2005-07-06
Since the end of the Cold War and the virtual eradication of the two other great political ideologies of the twentieth century, namely Communism and Fascism, the victory of Capitalism has earned it the right to proceed unmolested and, to a very great degree, unquestioned in its dissemination to every point on the globe. This, as Samir Amin author of The Liberal Virus aptly points out, could be dangerous. Capitalism is a system that has always been based on the Darwinian principal of survival of the fittest and as such "can produce nothing other than an intensification of the inequalities between people."
True. So true. And anybody who takes the time to actually study Adam Smith's, The Wealth of Nations, will see that the twin engines supposed to drive a Capitalist economy are greed and competition, with very little regard for the actual well being of humans. This should come as no surprise, as a quick look around at the current champions of Capitalist enterprise in America like insurance, energy and telecommunications will readily reveal.
Any thinking person must agree that it is at least worthwhile to keep a cautious eye on the current trajectory of unfettered Capitalism, and inquiring into its possible dangers is undoubtedly healthy. In fact, what's needed is a measured evaluation of Capitalism as it exists today, both good and bad, with the kind of unflinching exploration into its darker implications provided by Samir Amin here.
But in the current American political climate where knee-jerk Conservatism hold sways and the petty ranting of narrow-minded demagogues is counted as reasoned political discourse, this is no time to inject an analysis of Capitalism with anti-Americanism and hand-wringing over the demise of Socialism. A book like this advances the issue with only the most restrained and open-minded readers and, for the rest, drags the debate back into the muck of Cold War hysterics.
Not only does Amin reveal himself as a whiney, vindictive Socialist who would love nothing more than to see America brought to its knees, but he is an obtuse and turgid writer of the kind only academia can produce. There were sentences in this book I had to read three times before I could figure out what he was saying, and his annoying habit of loading his sentences with digressive clauses, parenthetical clarifications and coined words, had me grateful that this book was only 112 pages long - I have read 300 page books that took me less time to get a handle on.
All in all, The Liberal Virus explores some issues much in need of inquiry but does so in a way that is so off-putting that it cannot gain much traction among American readers, no matter what their stripe, and can only serve to hinder the debate. What we need is a book about Capitalism that can open minds, not scare them closed or befuddle them with the liberal self-indulgence of its author.
Spasiba Tovarish.......2005-03-15
Reading like the "educational materials" that were provided to me as a student in East Germany (DDR)this short text is heavy on Marxist jargon and ideological arguments by assertion and fairly useless as an analysis of the genuinely troubling problem of "Permanent War and Americanization of the World" emblazened on the cover. Ultimately the text hardly touches on these issues accept as symptoms of Western liberalism. While I share Amin's assessment of the foundations and limits of liberalism and the "market", I find much of his argument intellectually flaccid, problematized by his misunderstanding of Post-Modernism and his predisposition to certain outcomes regardless of how thin the argument is stretched to reach those conclusions. One such example is his meaninglessly derisive inclusion of Israel in a discussion of the "Triad" (USA, Europe and Japan) while leaving out the PR China, perhaps also for ideological reasons, despite China's massive and highly exploitative economy. In the end, Amin is clearly preaching to the choir and in the "Latin" of the orthodoxy at that. Despite an enticing cover and provocative blurb, the book ends up being the same tired and disappointing Marxist ad hominem discourse, providing solutions like "Europe should and can liberate itself from the liberal virus. However, this inititiative cannot come from the segments of dominant capital, but must come from the people." (p.108)Not so helpful, Comrade.
A Socialist-Minded Alexis de Tocqueville.......2005-01-03
"The Liberal Virus" by Samir Amin is a concise and searing indictment of neoliberal economics and American imperialism but also offers hope and guidance to securing a more hopeful future. Like a socialist-minded Alexis de Tocqueville, Mr. Amin's internationalist perspective allows him to peer into American society in order to dissect it clearly, intelligently and persuasively. The result is a penetrating analysis that helps us understand how the U.S. has become the violent purveyor of an "obscolescent" form of capitalism that humanity must resist or else risk its continued descent into barbarism.
Mr. Amin begins by debunking the liberal vision of U.S. economic and cultural triumphalism as mere ideology and media propaganda, arguing that America's privileged position is due mainly to the exercise of political power backed by military force. Drawing on Marx, the author presents an alternative view that stresses class conflict and the role of the state, which uses its power to enforce the accumulation of wealth for the benefit of American capital. With the European Union and Japan as junior partners in this project, Mr. Amin states that "apartheid on a world scale" has ensued for the people living in the global South who realize little benefit from this system.
In tracing the origins of liberalism, Mr. Amir connects the history of America's settlement by extremist religious sects and the practice of genocide and slavery to explain how Americans have tended to mix racism, violence and selfish individualism with capitalism in an uniquely barbaric form. Interestingly, the author turns the tables on the myth of "New America" and "Old Europe", positing that the American presidential system precludes the diversity of opinion found in European parliamentary politics, thus stifling debate and making it easier for neoliberal (conservative) ideologues to prevail. Today, the admixture of fanatic religiosity and military strength presents a frightening image to the world of a U.S. that is controlled by "neo-Nazis" dedicated to preserving America's privileged economic position at all costs.
In the final chapter, Mr. Amin proposes strategies for how the world might restructure to go beyond capitalism and resist U.S. domination. The author believes that Europe must provide leadership by establishing its own alliances in a way that creates solidarity with the South and allows progressive and humanist values to flourish. If technology can be pressed into the service of human needs and not profit, the author hopes that a new "people's internationalism" can emerge to bring about an era of peace, prosperity and equality for all.
In the end, "The Liberal Virus" helps us understand many uncomfortable truths and the changes that need to be made if we wish our country to become a positive force in the world. I highly recommend the book to all.
A heated and focused warning .......2004-10-10
The Liberal Virus: Permanent War And The Americanization Of The World by Samir Amin (Director, Third World Forum, Dakar, Senegal) is a political deconstruction of the principles that define human beings via their economic existence only and fuel America's global expansion and even war to serve the interests of its capital. Defining "liberalism" as the philosophy and ideals that motivate such far-reaching, heavy-handed, money-driven governmental policies, The Liberal Virus is actually a heated and focused warning against the harm caused by such blind and overextended interference in other nations. Arguing that democratization is an ongoing process, fundamental to human social evolution, rather than a fixed constitutional formula, and calling for a new compromise between capital and labor that emphasizes the importance of solidarity and reconstructs an internationalism that does not divide and conquer neighboring regions, The Liberal Virus is actually a razor-keen warning of how wrong-headed intervention can be as poisonous as imperialism once was.
Book Description
Monumental changes are occurring on the planet, yet most people are unaware of them. In God's Last Offer, environmentalist Ed Ayres paints a vivid "big picture" of where the world is headed. He identifies a lethal combination of events -- radical climate changes, increasing species extinction, unsustainable consumption, and exploding human populations -- and presents a blueprint for a radical shift of policies and priorities to avoid a cataclysm.
Customer Reviews:
Wake Up call that should be mandatory reading.......2004-12-29
On November 1999, Time magazine published a set of fascinating and thought-provoking articles on a variety of subjects entitled "Visions of the 21st Century". Amongst these articles was one authored by Ed Ayres under the title "Will We Still Eat Meat?" and what a fascinating couple of pages worth of statistics and insight for those intelligent and sensitive enough to care!
While only the text of it can be easily found on the web (http://www.junkscience.com/nov99/ayres.htm ), it summarizes eloquently some of the resource-availability-and-impact issues which are masterfully detailed in this extremely important book "God's Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future".
Civilized countries should revise their educational programs to incorporate this book into their systems while there may be time to revert some of the human-made ecological disasters that result from the common "Quick Buck" mentality and particularly the cruelty associated with animal meat consumption - but, unfortunately they will not. Well established meat profiting industries, as well as, idiotic religious fervor will get in the way to promote the perpetual and biggest crime of humanity. What a shame!
By all means - BUY THIS BOOK if you haven't.
Right Sentiment, Wrong Apocalypse.......2004-02-03
Ed Ayres gives us another example of breathless doomsaying replete with the usual warnings of environmental destruction and mass extinctions. What we really need to fear is the overwhelming hubris represented by people like Ayres! Yes, our climate is changing. It has changed many times in recorded history, with temperatures both higher and lower than the norms of today. The coast of Greenland was once habitable and verdant. In 1776, the Hudson River was frozen solid enough for soldiers to drag canon accross. The notion that our species can directly influence or "correct" global climatic shifts is ludicrous. Scientists can barely predict weather 48 hours in advance, yet they ask us to believe computer simulations of the Earth's climate projected 50 years into the future!
The real danger to our way of life is the unchecked and growing powers of bureaucracies that whittle away at our liberties under the guise of environmentalism or security. Ayers glosses over this larger and more imminent threat.
I was floored!.......2003-05-14
In this 1999 masterpiece of activist writing, Ed Ayres eerily predicts what the future holds if humanity continues upon it's suicidal path of rising carbon, consumption, population, and biodiversity loss. Reading this today (May 2003) will bring chills to your spine. Everything Ayres prognosticated in 1999 has come to pass: massive terrorism from non-aligned organizations (bin Laden-ism), widespread corporate deceit (Enron), rise of mega-viruses (SARS), and unimaginable species extinctions. And for those of us who arenýt in denial and choose not to ignore, we realize the worst is yet to come. There is little chance of reversing this downward spiral... but doing nothing is too shameful to contemplate. This book should be required reading for all graduating college - or even high school - seniors.
Very important and timely analysis.......2002-04-22
After reading this very well researched, cogent analysis, I am increasingly convinced that the world is threatened as perhaps never before, that it is urgent that steps be taken immediately to move the earth away from its present perilous path, and that a shift to plant-based diets is an essential part of the changes that must be made.
Ed Ayres is extremely well qualified to write this book as he is editor of "Worldwatch" magazine, the semi-monthly publication of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based thinktank that produces annual publications, including "State of the World", that aim to alert people to current critical environmental threats. Ayres is also editorial director of the Institute. His book makes it abundently clear why the following ancient rabbinic teaching that has been generally ignored over many centuries is extremely relevant today:
In the hour when the Holy one, blessed be He, created the first person, He showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden, and said to him: "See My works, how fine they are; Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy My world, For if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you." Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28
In his compelling, well written book, Ed Ayres stresses the importance of what he calls four megaphenomena that are having great effects on the world today and increasingly will threaten the world's future unless fundamental changes are made. These are four revolutionary changes or spikes in variables that had been relatively constant throughout history: the carbon spike, the extinction spike, the consumption spike, and the population spike. Here is a brief summary of Ayre's discussions of these four important spikes:
1) The carbon spike: There is an extraordinary worldwide concensus of climate scientists about global warming and its potential impacts. After a thorough study and several reviews of their findings, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a task force of leading climate scientists from 98 countries, unequivocally concluded that global warming is already rapidly occurring, that human activites that increase atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a major driving force, that global warming is a problem of enormous consequence that will continue to unleash devastating weather disturbances ranging from unnaturally heavy storms and floods to heat waves and droughts, and therefore it is essential that carbon emissions be cut sharply worldwide. There seems to be abundant reinforcement for these conclusions from many recent news reports of record temperatures, severe hurricanes and other storms, and severe droughts in Israel and other countries.
2) The extinction spike: While largely invisible to most people, this spike may ultimately be the most important one, because it threatens to unravel the web of life that sustains our everyday lives. Many biologists believe that we have entered the fastest mass extinction in the world's history, possibly even faster than the period when the dinosaurs died out.
3) The consumption spike: The global economy expands as much in a year today as it did in any entire century prior to 1900. This rapid increase in commerce is drawing down the earth's finite resources far faster than natural processes can regenerate them. Hence, along with rapid population growth, rising levels of unsustainable consumption contributes to many current environmental and climatic crises.
4) The population spike: while it took all of world history up to about 1800 for the world population to reach its first billion people, in recent years there have been increases of a billion people about every 12 years. While the world faces many critical environmental threats with its present 6 billion people, it is projected that there will be over 3 billion additional people by the middle of the 21st century.
Ayres skillfully shows how all of these spikes are interrelated. As world population grows and people consume more, more fossil fuels are burned, thereby increasing the carbon spike. As more land is used for housing, industry, and agriculture, habitats are destroyed furthering the extinction spike. When the temperature rapidly increases, many species are unable to migrate fast enough to higher altitudes or latitudes, and hence they begin to die off.
In addition to calling attention to these four megaphenomena that so threaten the world''s future, Ayres also analyzes why so little attention seems to be paid to these threats that are related to "the most world-changing events in the history of our species", and why so many people are unresponsive to the challenges that now loom before us. Among the reasons he thoroughly discusses and illustrates using many examples are the failure of the media to probe beyond immediate events for underlying causes and connections, the power of the fossil fuel industries and others who gain from a continuation of the status quo to control the U. S. economy and stands taken by politicians, media attention on side issues rather than critical issues, the fragmentation of knowledge caused by specialization so that few people see the big picture, and the creation of false extremes by corporate PR managers.
Ayres stresses that what we do now to confront the challenges of these spikes will determine whether human civilization can survive in the long term. In his analysis of the steps necessary to avert current global threats, Ayres, a long-time vegetarian who wrote an excellent article in the November 8, 1999 issue of Time magazine that argued that meat consumption will decrease in the 21st century due to the great environmental and other societal costs of animal-based diets and agriculture, emphasizes the importance of shifting to vegetarian diets. He indicates that the production and consumption of animal products is significantly related to increased disease rates, the wasteful use of water, land, and other respources, and many ecothreats.
In summary, I strongly recommend this book to every citizen, especially our political, religious, and industrial leaders, so that they will recognize the urgency of our current situation and the need for fundamental changes. It is especially recommended for vegetarians, because it provides much valuable information and arguments that can help in efforts to make other people aware of he importance of shifts to plant-based diets in order to reduce current global threats.
An Absolute Must-Read.......2001-08-26
If I could afford to, I would buy a copy of this book for everyone I know and almost everyone I encounter, on the off-chance that they might read it and take personal action (or at least, begin to connect the dots between their own consumer frenzy and the fate of the planet). Although I was already aware - in fragments - of most of the looming crises mentioned in the book, Ayres puts it all together and makes causal connections: between the Aswan Dam and famine in the Middle East; between the shortage of wheat in China and rising prices in America; and if course, between a society gone mad for SUVs, fast food and mansions in the suburbs and the potential (or rather, current) disastrous changes in the world climate. The message of the book is that life as we know it is no longer sustainable, but if we act now, and act together (Ayres also makes a wonderful case for community as opposed to "survivalism") there is hope not only for life on this planet, but a better life for its inhabitants. Read this book; your life may depend on it. And pass it on.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from World Watch, published by Worldwatch Institute on September 1, 1999. The length of the article is 1525 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: Specialization is discussed as a factor contributing to the widespread failure to respond to global environmental problems. Topics include the narrowness of the expert, the need for general understanding, and the need to share and integrate expert perspectives.
Citation Details
Title: Specialization and Tunnel Vision.(adapted from 'God's Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future')
Author: Ed Ayres
Publication:
World Watch (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 1999
Publisher: Worldwatch Institute
Volume: 12
Issue: 5
Page: 3
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from World Watch, published by Worldwatch Institute on May 1, 1999. The length of the article is 4356 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: The failure to respond to the environment challenges facing the world is discussed. Topics include warnings issued by environmental scientists, reasons for the collective lack of astonishment, and the need for fundamental changes in education, perception and consciousness.
Citation Details
Title: Why Are We Not Astonished?(adapted from 'God's Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future')
Author: Ed Ayres
Publication:
World Watch (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 1999
Publisher: Worldwatch Institute
Volume: 12
Issue: 3
Page: 25
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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