We live in times of uncertainty and insecurity, at a personal, national and global level. Writers such as Samuel P. Huntington and Robert D. Kaplan, respectively, have spoken of an emerging 'clash of civilizations' and of 'coming anarchy'. This book is also concerned with the future of civilization, in particular with the conflict between economic growth and the sustainability of the biophysical lifesupport systems of the planet, arguing that the flawed system of orthodox neo-classical economics has justified the modernist belief in the necessity of unending economic growth and the ceaseless exploitation of nature.

Economic globalization--the creation of a one-world economy with the free-flow of capital, goods and services across national boundaries--is eroding the economic sovereignty of nations and producing a trail of unemployment and social turmoil in its wake. Further, the irresistible force of economic globalization is set to crash into the immovable object of the global environmental crisis, producing a breakdown of civilized order in the world and threatening the continuation of human life itself. This book is a systematic critique of orthodox neoclassical economics, which has supplied a philosophical and ideological framework for economic globalization, unending economic growth and the ceaseless exploitation of nature.

The modern world is, in the authors' view, undergoing the process of meltdown--global meltdown. Having argued in an earlier book that humankind is headed for an environmental catastrophe that will either eliminate the human species or greatly reduce our numbers, the authors now focus on the breakdown of organized social order that will occur when the ecological crisis happens. Believing that civilization as we know it will not last, even without a definitive environmental cataclysm, they explore here the social, political, and philosophical ramifications of this vision. After outlining the interaction of the forces of environmental destruction, economic rationalism, and technological revolution, this book shows their impact on social problems such as immigration, racial and ethnic conflict, and the loss of personal, spiritual, and religious meaning. In the first chapter, the authors consider the effects of these social conflicts in both the non-Western and the Western world, concluding that the global meltdown theory is supported by the worldwide rise of terrorism. Chapter 2 discusses the technological and ecological forces they believe will led to a "new world disorder." The work then goes on to use Australia as a case study illustrating the collision of population and environment. In the concluding chapter, the authors support their thesis further with a review of the literature on the subject.

This scientifically rigorous and philosophically sophisticated defense of environmentalism is meant to excite, educate, and alarm the reader. There is a widespread scientific and public recognition that the world is facing an environmental crisis of vast proportions. What is the relationship between the growth of human population and industrial activity on one hand and the environmental crisis on the other? If this is not determined and dealt with, Earth's ecology may be expected to collapse.

In Reading Duncan Reading, thirteen scholars and poets examine, first, what and how the American poet Robert Duncan read and, perforce, what and how he wrote. Harold Bloom wrote of the searing anxiety of influence writers experience as they grapple with the burden of being original, but for Duncan this was another matter altogether. Indeed, according to Stephen Collis, "No other poet has so openly expressed his admiration for and gratitude toward his predecessors." Part one emphasises Duncan's acts of reading, tracing a variety of his derivations-including Sarah Ehlers's demonstration of how Milton shaped Duncan's early poetic aspirations, Siobhan Scarry's unveiling of the many sources (including translation and correspondence) drawn into a single Duncan poem, and Clement Oudart's exploration of Duncan's use of "foreign words" to fashion "a language to which no one is native." In part two, the volume turns to examinations of poets who can be seen to in some way derive from Duncan-and so in turn reveals another angle of Duncan's derivative poetics. J. P. Craig traces Nathaniel MacKey's use of Duncan's "would-be shaman," Catherine Martin sees Duncan's influence in Susan Howe's "development of a poetics where the twin concepts of trespass and `permission' hold comparable sway," and Ross Hair explores poet Ronald Johnson's "reading to steal." These and other essays collected here trace paths of poetic affiliation and affinity and hold them up as provocative possibilities in Duncan's own inexhaustible work. Contributors: J. P. Craig, Sarah E. Ehlers, George Fragopoulos, Stephen Fredman, Ross Hair, Catherine Martin, Peter O'Leary, Clement Oudart, Siobhan Scarry, Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas, Andy Weaver