This book - “neither a lament nor a cheap forecast of doom” - is written in a kind of discursive hand-wringing fashion much loved by American journalists of the “left” (Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, The Nation), full of picture portraits standing for large (hush at the term) economic forces, local colour and exotic details. On the right subject, it works very well (see McKibben's The End of Nature, or Hertsgaard's Earth Odyssey). This case is less clear-cut.
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