Book Review: World Made by Hand

When I read James Howard Kunstler’s (JHK) book The Long Emergency, it had a profound impact on me. I had been aware for many years that “running out of oil” was a serious matter. After all, I took on the challenge of peak oil in my graduate thesis in 1995. But my focus was more on finding a source that could replace oil as it ran out. Reading The Long Emergency was the first time it really hit me that I was missing a lot of key pieces of the picture.


The impact of The Long Emergency wasn’t necessarily because I thought JHK’s vision of the future was correct, but it made me think about possibilities. It caused me to look at the suburbs in a new light, and to really appreciate how vulnerable the U.S. is to oil shocks. It made me realize that problems will start to crop up