Books

Books : reviews

Mihajlo D. Mesarovic, Eduard Pestel.
Mankind at the Turning Point: the second report to the Club of Rome.
Hutchinson. 1974

We seem, as we enter the last quarter of the twentieth century, to be running out of everything – food, materials, and energy alike. Yet daily there are more of us, as the world’s population grows by leaps and bounds, so that the demand for the world’s resources is increasing as fast as the resources are dwindling.

How the world’s societies will cope – indeed, if they can cope – with these problems is the central subject of Mankind at the Turning Point, the second report sponsored by the distinguished Club of Rome.

This report differs markedly from the Club’s Limits to Growth. Although sober and direct in its presentation of the challenges confronting mankind, it is far from a doomsday prophecy. It offers alternative ‘scenarios’ which the authors claim can avert potential catastrophe.

The authors’ conclusions and recommendations, and the revealing documentary material accompanying them, are derived from computer analyses that use a new model of patterns of long-term world development.

Mankind at the Turning Point defines the consequences of current world crises, and makes clear the choices for our international political masters. Transition to an integrated world system will not be easy, but if the world chooses to control and direct its own future growth, we may hope for ‘a dawn, not a doom; a beginning, not an end’.