Gaia Peace Atlas

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The U.S.-Soviet summit, the Iran-Iraq conflict and ecological problems set the stage for this book's theme: Can mankind continue to survive? Barnaby, former director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, invited progressive world leaders to contribute essays and assembled a team of writers to draft chapters on our ``catastrophe-prone'' Gaiaplanetary life as a whole self-regulating organism. The book is clearly written, but suffers from a busy layout and redundancyliterally every page has a long sidebar, expanding on and repeating the myriad topics mentioned in the main text. Sobering facts are presented, about everything from the escalating arms trade to world population problems; innovative solutions are proposed (for example, an ``ecofreeze'' that would halt deforestation, ozone depletion, etc.). But ultimately the reader is left wondering how the countries of the world will agree to such steps, or to the ``global governance'' held up as a goal. The book's naive philosophy of world peace is further undercut by a pronounced anti-Israel bias and a failure to recognize the politicization of the United Nations. Illustrated. (October)