To most people paying attention to the collision between industrial society and the hard limits of a finite planet, it's clear that things are going very, very wrong. We no longer have unlimited time and resources to deal with the crises that define our future, and the options are limited to the tools we have on hand right now.
This book is about one very powerful option: deliberate technological regression.
Technological regression isn't about 'going back,' it's about using the past as a resource to meet the needs of the present. It starts from the recognition that older technologies generally use fewer resources and cost less than modern equivalents, and it embraces the heresy of technological choice, our ability to choose or refuse the technologies pushed by corporate interests. People are already ditching smartphones in favor of 'dumb phones' and land lines and eBook sales are declining, while printed books rebound. Clear signs among many that blind faith in progress is faltering and opening up the possibility that the best way forward may well involve going back.
A must-read for anyone willing to think the unthinkable and embrace the possibilities of a retro future.
John Michael Greer, one of the most influential authors exploring the future of industrial society, writes the widely cited blog The Archdruid Report. He has authored more than forty books including The Long Descent and Dark Age America. He lives in Cumberland, MD, an old mill town in the Appalachians, with his wife Sara.
Table of Contents:
Preface
One: The End of Progress
Two: The Delusion of Control
Three: Going Forward by Going Back
Four: The Heresy of Technological Choice
Five: Seven Sustainable Technologies
Six: Mentats Wanted, Will Train
Seven: The Butlerian Carnival
Eight: The Future of Civilization
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
One of the most consistently original social critics on the contemporary scene, John Michael Greer is the author of more than forty published books, including After Progress and Dark Age America, as well as the widely read weekly blog The Archdruid Report. He lives in an old red brick mill town in the Appalachians with his wife Sara.
Review :
[John Michael Greer's] new book is just loaded with powerful phrases, like this one: "a great many people these days seem to have lost the ability to grasp that the other side can learn." ... He says the state of breakdown called "Dark Ages" may be our natural state. In any case, if things are falling apart, Greer suggests seven basic technologies that we could take with us, that we should all learn to preserve so that intelligent and necessary ideas can continue. These include basics like the printing press and intensive organic gardening - which can operate without fossil fuels or electricity, if need be. The book is packed with ideas. - Alex Smith, Radio Ecoshock
