Reviews for Appraising sustainable development

The average rating for Appraising sustainable development based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-10-30 00:00:00 Robert Blume This collection of essays is from 1994 and therefore, a lot of people in the anarchist movement might be already familiar with its ideas, in general terms. Nevertheless it's an interesting look at anarchism and its relation to the natural world, though the title itself its somewhat misleading in that the scope of the book is broader than the title implies; there are essays on anarchism's relationship with feminism and a critique of Murray Bookchin, which rehearses a few of the factionalist controversies of the time; between left and post-left, lifestyle anarchism, traditional anarcho-syndicalism, which, together with the arcane differences between sociobiology and social ecology, have always failed to hold my interest. Briefly, I can say that I come down more on the side of the seemingly more pragmatic Bookchin. The essays here presented are more engaging when they deal with more practical subjects; I found the essays on feminism, on animal rights, and on self-defense, say, more apt to command my attention than the essay on "Anarchism, Chaos Theory, and the Metaphysics of Nature" but, to be fair, I recognise the point being made, about self-organisation in nature, to be a valid one. One can see here, though, in places, a slight romanticism about "the wilderness" of the type critiqued by other writers.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-08-01 00:00:00 Rex Thrown While I believe Elliot meant well in her text, the title of the book didn't really reflect the message in the book itself. The entire book basically outlines the issues facing sustainable development, and dosen't really explain how to face these challenges besides the pseudo-solutions of decentralizing government and empowering the people, which is such a hard task to do in developing countries so tied up in authoritarian regimes, where this book focuses.