When Two Worlds Collide
Klaus Bosselmann
363 pages
(NZ$26.95 incl. postage)
(US$28.95 incl. postage overseas)
OUT OF PRINT
OUT OF PRINT
Klaus Bosselmann’s new book is due to be published in 2010
Modern society is on a collision course with the natural order. Can ecological catastrophe and the demise of the human species be avoided? There is still time, but only if we transform human relationships with nature by changing the pillars of Western thought.
When Two Worlds Collide shows how this can be achieved. It provides the ethical, political and legal framework for a sustainable society.
This is an English adaptation of the author’s highly acclaimed Im Namen der Natur which won the 1993 award of the German Foundation of Science.
This is, quite simply, one of those books which I would consider that civilised people need to read and to have in their libraries.
Ian MacDuff, Victoria University Law Faculty, Wellington
It is nothing less than a profound analysis of the patterns in Western society leading to the global environmental crisis. And it does not stop there... in future no politician or lawyer should be able to say, they didn’t know.
Psychology Today
A guiding, pioneering work... Practical help for ecological futurologists.
Der Spiegel
Bosselmann’s work is truly challenging and thought-provoking. It does not happen often that professors live up to the promise of their title...
Die Presse, Vienna
This is compulsory reading for every politician, sociologist and lawyer. Anyone not reading it should at least have it under their pillow.
ARD German radio
Never did I read a scholarly book which was so exciting... I have not read a book with so many ideas and stimulations for new politics, with many examples and proofs of the catastrophic consequences of our old politics and at the same time with so much hope and help for an ecological turning-point.
Franz Alt, German TV commentator
Industrial societies are about to undermine the foundations of their own ideologies, leading to major disruptions and consequences for humanity. Klaus Bosselmann strikes a balance for a new society where traditional principles of moral individualism and rights take a subordinate role to those of ecological survival. Compelling reading.
Rainbow News
We must shift from an anthropocentric (people-centred) to an ecocentric (eco-system centred) way of thinking. We must recognise that people are part of nature, not separate from it. That is the straightforward message of this book. His critique is comprehensive.
Evening Post
The book traces 11,000 years of Western economic and philosophical development to argue the need for a radical change to Green consciousness... For sustainable society read radical transformation. No more market economy, no more consumerism – what Klaus calls the “mega-machine” and the deluded disastrous belief in the concept of economic growth; no more expoitation of fossil fuels, waging wars over their diminishing supply and worrying about the Greenhouse effect. The world has arrived, says this book, at the edge of the ecological abyss. To survive and to heal we need “holistic communities” using wind power and solar energy. This, of course, is a simplistic overview of a big book promoting ideas, which, while not new anymore, have probably not previously been argued so comprehensively and by someone recognised as one of the best minds in the international Green movement.
Gulf News
Nations need to formulate a co-ordinated plan to save the world, which according to the book includes:- Strengthening UN decision-making by creating an environmental body with greater powers than the Security Council; and drastically strengthen existing initiatives to help the Third World protect the climate, preserve tropical forests, promote disarmament and redistribute funds.
Sunday Star Times
Excerpt...
This book documents much of what I have been struggling with over the past 20 years; this nagging feeling that our world is running out of time. How is it that most of us would like to see our world (and ourselves) more in tune with nature, but realise that the opposite is happening? Hopes and realities are drifting further and further apart.
The environmental crisis is the most serious crisis humanity has ever faced. However, it is not a technical problem, but a problem of Western culture and consciousness. Our changes must begin here. The changes will be experienced differently. My own experience has been that i had to find a way to reconcile two apparently colliding worlds: those of society and ecology. My understanding of ecology tells me that we are an integral part of nature. As a jurist I believe we must change our social standards and norms to incorporate this fundamental truth. If we can achieve this, then we may indeed be able to bring the laws of society and the laws of nature into reconciliation.
The book introduces political ecology – a new discipline or paradigm allowing intercommunication between science, sociology, philosophy, psychology, economics and law.
