Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America Paperback - 2014

From the rear cover

"John Michael Greer writes with unsurpassed clarity about the predicaments of energy and economy mankind faces. And he does it with a wonderfully kind, genial, and wise spirit."
JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER, author, The Long Emergency and the World Made by Hand novels

"Greer's work is nothing short of brilliant."
RICHARD HEINBERG, Senior Fellow, Post-Carbon Institute, and author, The Party's Over and The End of Growth

THE FATE OF America's global empire is the central feature of today's geopolitical landscape. Our response to its imminent failure will determine the trajectory of our shared global future. Using a wealth of historical examples combined with groundbreaking original analysis, Decline and Fall :

• Sheds new light on the misunderstood idea of empire
• Shows how the United States has backed itself into a blind corner in the pursuit of political and economic power
• Maps the road back to democracy in the wake of imperial collapse.

By shifting the conversation from whether today's American empire should survive to whether it can survive, and arguing persuasively that the answer to the above question is "no," Decline and Fall makes an invaluable contribution to the body of speculative post-industrial literature. This book is a must-read for anyone who believes that the time has come to reinvent the American Dream.

"Greer... offers us a view on our deindustrial future that is both carefully reasoned and grounded in spirituality. "
DMITRY ORLOV, author, Reinventing Collapse and The Five Stages of Collapse

"The enormous virtue of John Michael Greer's work is that his wisdom is never conventional, but profound and imaginative. "
SHARON ASTYK, author, Depletion and Abundance and Independence Days

JOHN MICHAEL GREER is a scholar of ecological history and an internationally renowned peak oil theorist, and the author of more than 30 books, including Green Wizardry and The Long Descent .