Politics in The Books Store

The title of this book is Reinventing Collapse, and I have to say that's exactly what this book manages to do. It's a short book, so you could reqad it in just a few hours, but it is packed with information and "make you think" moments. Orlov's unique perpsective on American life engages the reader and opens your eyes to what life in America is like to an outsider.
Without a doubt the most useful aspect of this book are the details of what the situation was like in Russia after their political collapse. This book is a tutorial on how the reader might modify thier life in the future if (or when) America collapses.
Reviewed by Matt Mayer - Groovy Green

In the waning days of the American empire, we find ourselves mired in political crisis, with our foreign policy coming under sharp criticism and our economy in steep decline. These trends mirror the experience of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. Reinventing Collapse examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we might prepare for coming events.

Rather than focusing on doom and gloom, Reinventing Collapse suggests that there is room for optimism if we focus our efforts on personal and cultural transformation. With characteristic dry humor, Dmitry Orlov identifies three progressive stages of response to the looming crisis:

• Mitigation—alleviating the impact of the coming upheaval
• Adaptation—adjusting to the reality of changed conditions
• Opportunity—flourishing after the collapse

He argues that by examining maladaptive parts of our common cultural baggage, we can survive, thrive, and discover more meaningful and fulfilling lives, in spite of steadily deteriorating circumstances.

This challenging yet inspiring work is a must-read for anyone concerned about energy, geopolitics, international relations, and life in a post-Peak Oil world.

Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad and immigrated to the United States at the age of twelve. He was an eyewitness to the Soviet collapse over several extended visits to his Russian homeland between the late eighties and mid-nineties. He is an engineer and a leading Peak Oil theorist whose writing is featured on such sites as www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net and www.powerswitch.org.uk.

"Few passengers disembark at Fuling ... and so Fuling appears like a break in a dream--the quiet river, the cabins full of travelers drifting off to sleep, the lights of the city rising from the blackness of the Yangtze," says Hessler. A poor city by Chinese standards, the students at the college are mainly from small villages and are considered very lucky to be continuing their education. As an English teacher, Hessler is delighted with his students' fresh reactions to classic literature. One student says of Hamlet, "I don't admire him and I dislike him. I think he is too sensitive and conservative and selfish." Hessler marvels,

You couldn't have said something like that at Oxford. You couldn't simply say: I don't like Hamlet because I think he's a lousy person. Everything had to be more clever than that ... you had to dismantle it ... not just the play itself but everything that had ever been written about it.