Life, Money & Illusion;
Living on Earth as if we want to stay
Mike Nickerson, Seven Generations Publishing

When we are children, writes Nickerson, we want to grow bigger. When we
reach our optimum size, we stop growing. As adults, we then look to
maintain ourselves healthily. Sadly, the same is not true of our economic
structure. It is designed on the assumption that continued growth is the
aim, regardless of how it might be supported. Nickerson's wise and
readable book approaches this theme from many angles - biology, physics,
money, religion, capitalism - interwoven into a fascinating narrative of
where our society has gone wrong and how it might put things right. Most
inspiring is the realisation that while it took efforts of extraordinary
complexity to get us to the state we are now in, moving to a sustainable
society involves not harder steps, but simpler ones. The difficulty comes
not in what we will have to do, but in having the courage to stop doing
what we are doing now.

Review by Jeremy Smith
for the Ecologist magazine, March 2007