The Upside of Down (book)

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization

Author	Thomas Homer-Dixon
Genre	Non-fiction, Political Science, Social Science
Publisher	Random House Canada
Publication date	October 2006
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	448 pp.
ISBN	ISBN 0-676-97722-7 (10) & ISBN 978-0-676-97722-6 (13)
Dewey Decimal	909.83
LC Class	HC79.E5 H66 2006

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (ISBN 0-676-97722-7) is a non-fiction book published in 2006 by Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor at the University of Waterloo.

The book sets out a theory of the growth, crisis, and renewal of societies. The world's converging energy, environmental, and political stresses could cause a breakdown of national and global order. Yet there are things we can do now to keep such a breakdown from being catastrophic. And some kinds of breakdown could even open up extraordinary opportunities for creative, bold reform of our societies, if we are prepared to exploit these opportunities when they arise.

Background

In the mid-1990s, Dr. Homer-Dixon's work on the links between environmental stress and conflict resulted in the publication of Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton University Press, 1999). From this research, Dr. Homer-Dixon concluded that the pivotal factor in successful adaptation to such stress and conflict was the ability to produce and utilize new ideas, or what he began to call 'ingenuity'. Over the next few years, Dr. Homer-Dixon extended his ingenuity argument into the study of how societies, in general, adapted to a wide range of complex stresses. The culmination of this work was the publication of The Ingenuity Gap (Knopf Canada), which put forth his research in many fields relating to social adaptation to complex stress.

For the six years after the publication of The Ingenuity Gap, Dr. Homer-Dixon extended this line of inquiry even further, examining the threat to global stability of simultaneous and interacting demographic, environmental, economic, and political stresses. This work resulted in the publication of The Upside of Down, in which he explains that, although these stresses have seemed ever present and fairly manageable individually, the real danger is that several will likely reach a crisis point at the same time, creating a train of events that could overwhelm the resilience of even the richest and most powerful societies. This and other complex, inter-related issues are examined in this book.

Content and Style

The Prologue of the book provides an overview of the main argument. It begins in San Francisco during the great 1906 fire that destroyed the city, then moves on to Rome, 2003, with some reflections on the remnants of a once powerful global empire. The prologue finishes with a perilously fast car ride along unfamiliar country roads in dense fog. These three seemingly unrelated accounts illustrate the basic premises of the book: our fate is uncertain, unpredictable devastation can happen at any time, and even the mightiest societies are susceptible to failure due to a variety of complex factors, but there is the hope of 'catagenesis'—"renewal through breakdown."

The ensuing twelve chapters expand on these theories, using many examples from general knowledge to maintain the book's accessibility and common understanding. Through this technique some very complex ideas and crucial terminology are introduced. In chapter one, for instance, we have the explanation of the "tectonic stresses" which could bring down society as we know it if "synchronous failure" were to occur. There is also reference to the "prospective mind", the quality required to help prevent/solve such crises.

Chapters 2 to 10 outline the factors contributing to the 'down' alluded to in the book's title, some of the main ones being: society's reliance on energy, escalating urbanization, the increasing need for affordable energy sources, the dangers of proliferating global networks and increased connectivity, environmental degradation, climate change, global economy and wealth differentials, intensifying complexity and panarchy, and the folly of the growth imperative. Throughout the book, to illustrate key points, Dr. Homer-Dixon draws parallels between the challenges we face today and the crises faced by the Roman Empire as it tried to cope with its decline. For instance, to explain society's relationship with energy, Homer-Dixon uses a detailed examination of Roman architecture and refers to the 'thermodynamics of empire'. In chapter three, the fate of Rome's once great cities is used to illustrate the potential dangers of our global tendency toward urbanization. Chapter ten, entitled 'Disintegration', shows how our dependence on energy, growth, and complex networks could bring about the collapse of society as we know it, just as the Roman Empire declined mainly due to over-extension, resource scarcity and financial failure.

After ten chapters of 'down', the book finally addresses the 'upside' of the situation. Using the term 'catagenesis' to refer to his theory of 'renewal through breakdown', Dr. Homer-Dixon begins to explain how we might be able to prevent or solve some of the crises he had warned of earlier in the book. In this world of increasingly complex and unpredictable dangers, especially if several crises happened to converge, he points out that society will need to build 'resilience' into crucial systems to be prepared for the worst. He stresses the need for the 'prospective mind', 'ingenuity' and 'open-source' problem solving. The last chapter of the book refers once again to Ancient Rome, this time with a reflection on the remnants of the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon. Dr. Homer-Dixon uses the ruins as an example of the failure of Rome's values to sustain its empire, and a warning for us to re-assess our own values before we, too, find ourselves in ruins.

Reception

After its publication in Canada by Random House Canada on October 31, 2006, the book remained for several months on the bestsellers lists of Maclean's, The Toronto Star, and The Globe and Mail most notably. On November 1, 2006, it was published in the U. S. by Island Press, then in the United Kingdom and Australia in 2007. On the ensuing book tours, Dr. Homer-Dixon discussed his book in talks and media interviews at universities, government departments and on public radio and television. In 2006, The Upside of Down received the National Business Book Award, and a Gold Award from ForeWord Magazine. In 2007, the book was named a 'best book' for 2007 in the Politics and Religion category by the Financial Times.

Critics and fellow scholars appreciated Homer-Dixon's ability to make the complex theories of the book accessible to the public. Most criticism was positive, expressing the importance of the book as an explanation of the dangers of our increasingly complex modern world, and because of its advocacy of resilience as a means to solve or overcome the resulting problems. In his review in Foreign Affairs online, John Ikenberry sums up the significance of the book : "Homer-Dixon offers a striking vision of how to confront the world of risk and uncertainty, calling for 'resilience-enhancing' strategies that protect food—and energy—supply networks and that can better cope with surprise." There were some critics, however, that found the book to be strong on presenting the issues but weak on the solutions. In his review of the book in The Globe and Mail, Will Kymlicka stated: "Even more disappointing is Homer-Dixon's third undertaking, namely his discussion of what we should do in response to these challenges." Barbara Julian of the Victoria Times Colonist also addresses the issue of the seeming dearth of solutions in the book and rounds out the argument when she writes in her review: "Every resident of the planet should be capable of joining the discussion about remedies. Thomas Homer-Dixon does his part in providing entry points for readers who are interested, in the form of research sources and websites to consult and to communicate through, including his own."

See also

• Progress trap

External links

• Official website for the book
• Official website for Thomas Homer-Dixon
• Audio interview with THECOMMENTARY.CA