On Growth II: The Crisis of Exploding Population and Resource Depletion

The major issue of our time has become the imminent threat of disaster owing to accelerating population growth and the rapid exhaustion of the earth's natural resources. When, in 1972, the Club of Rome report "The Limits of Growth" became an international best-seller, certain of its premises met with worldwide disagreement. But its predictions suddenly seemed all too possible when the energy crisis and world economic strife surfaced in ensuing months. Then, in 1974, Putnam's published "On Growth," a response to the Club of Rome's report, which Library Journal termed "a needed antidote for any library with 'The Limits of Growth' on its shelf." And now the debate continues with Putnam's publication of "On Growth II." In "On Growth II," Editor Willem L. Oltmans has collected the reactions of noted foreign authorities, all from the Third World socialist and Eastern countries. Some forty-eight scientists, historians, philosophers, statesmen, and economists are interviewed in depth, updating and evaluating from the perspective of recent events, in discussions permeated with a consciousness of social and political planning and structure. The result is a book of searching criticism, an invaluable study for everyone concerned with the problems of growth, resources, and sociopolitical and industrial development, an essential counterpart to the Club of Rome.