The Great U-Turn

The Great U-Turn - cover - the cover of the book, The Great U-Turn - de-industrialising society by Edward Goldsmith and with cartoons by Richard Willson, published by Green Books in 1988.

The ecology of health - modern health services have failed to deliver the promised goods, argues Edward Goldsmith. He attrributes this failure to the "chemical warfare" approach to treating disease and our decision, as a society, to subordinate health needs to the imperatives of the economy and industry. Originally published in The Ecologist Vol 10 Nos. 6/7, July-September 1980, then in La Medecine à la Question 1981 (France). A revised version was later released in 1988 as Chapter 4 of The Great U-Turn.

Can pollution be controlled? - this is a discussion of the multitude of pollutants, chemical and radiological, that are being pumped into the environment in the name of progress and development, and the failure of regulators to tackle the growing problem as to do so would challenge the principle of never-ending economic growth that threatens the entire biosphere. It was originally published in The Ecologist Vol. 9 Nos. 8 / 9, October-December 1979. This revised version appeared in 1988 as Chapter 5 of "The Great U-Turn".

De-industrialising society - five years after A Blueprint for Survival, Edward Goldsmith updates and reaffirms the original message, that we must create "an economically and politically de-centralised post-industrial society". The article was originally published in The Ecologist Vol. 7 No. 4, May 1977. This slightly revised version was published as Chapter 7 of The Great U-Turn.

The fall of the Roman empire - in this powerful essay, Edward Goldsmith concludes that internal moral and political decay and unsustainable agriculture underlie the fall of the Roman Empire, while the Barbarian invasions were merely the coup de grace. The comparisons with our own society and misguided sense of permanence are unsettling. It was published as Chapter 1 of The Great U-Turn, also published in The Ecologist, July 1975, and Le Sauvage (France), April 1976.

The ecology of war - this article explains how traditional wars were ritualised conflicts in which mortality was minimised, in contrast to the mass death and destruction of modern industrial modes of warfare. Originally published in The Ecologist in May 1974, then in Le Sauvage in April 1975 (France). A revised version appeared as Chapter 6 of The Great U-Turn in 1988.

The ecology of unemployment (extended version) - This short essay explains how the industrial system we live under not only creates unemployment, but created the very idea of unemployment. It was first published in The Ecologist Vol. 4 No. 2, February 1974, then in Everyman's of February 9 1975 (India). This revised version later appeared in 1988 as Chapter 3 of The Great U-Turn.

Education - what for? - this essay explores the paradox that the more we are educated, the more literacy has declined, while traditional knowledge essential for the transmission of culture to new generations is lost. Mass education, Edward Goldsmith argues, is doomed to fail in its essential task of socialising increasingly alienated younger generations. First published in The Ecologist, January 1974, then in PHP (Japan), December 1975) and Oko Journal (Switzerland), February 1975. This revised version appeared in 1988 as Chapter 2 of The Great U-Turn.