Beyond Progress: An Interpretive Odyssey to the Future

In this dynamic portrait of the human community as it enters the twenty-first century, Hugh De Santis argues that in a world of dwindling resources, economic inequality, and unremitting violence, the belief in endless progress can no longer be sustained.

Explaining that we have arrived at a great historic divide, De Santis asserts that the old modern order is giving way to an age of mutualism. He draws on world history and the study of international relations to explore the emerging future, in which new forms of social and political identity and regional associations and alignments will be needed to solve global problems. Demonstrating that mutualism will require a dramatic change in the way states, international institutions, corporations, and local communities interact, De Santis argues that this transformation will be especially difficult for the United States, which will have to abandon its exceptionalist identity and rejoin a world it can no longer escape.

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De Santis is professor of international security affairs at the National War College in Washington, D.C. In this study, or speculative inquiry, he aims--[from the introduction]--to challenge the superficial and the facile and the intellectual conformity they produce...to describe the manifold trends that are slowly and inconspicuously transforming old patterns of social behavior..., and to conceptualize change so that policy makers can better understand the international milieu when evaluating alternative courses of action. Paper edition (unseen), $15.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)