'An entertaining, informative and sometimes downright irreverent romp through
the ragged peaks and swampy hinterland of sustainability. Dresner's book deserves
to be read by students, practitioners and aficionados of sustainable development
alike'.
Tim Jackson, Professor of Sustainable Development, University of Surrey
At a time of increasingly rapid environmental deterioration, sustainability is one of the most important issues facing the world today. Whether a sustainable society is possible and how it can be achieved are questions that concern students of sustainability. The Principles of Sustainability, published by Earthscan, 17th November 2002, tackles these questions.
The book also draws parallels between sustainability and socialism. Both are philosophies concerned with the common good. Socialism was about equity within generations, whereas sustainability is about equity both between and within generations. If we have to live within environmental limits then the liberal argument that wealthy individuals must be free to consume unlimited resources cannot hold.
Sustainability is also like socialism in that it calls for large scale social reform. However, the failure of socialism has shown the difficulty of attempting to consciously control the course of history. Most controversially, the author argues that there is a paradox at the heart of sustainability in that it is about the impossibility of successfully controlling nature, but it hopes that it is possible to control the direction of social development. Yet both are fundamentally unpredictable and uncontrollable.
About the author:
Simon Dresner is a research fellow in the Environment Group at the Policy Studies Institute in London.
For further information, to request a review copy, or to interview the author please contact Maria Devine : tel. 020 7843 1961, fax. 020 7837 6348 or email mdevine@kogan-page.co.uk
Notes to the editor
£ 14.95 Paperback 1 85383 842 X 208 pages 234x153mm £40.00, Hardback, 1 85383 841 1
Published by Earthscan 17th November 2002
For orders in the USA: $24.95, paper, 1 85383 842 X $69.95, cloth, 1 85383 841 1
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