This long-promised sequel to Ophuls' influential and controversial classic Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity is an equally provocative critique of the liberal philosophy of government. Ophuls contends that the modern political paradigmthat is, the body of political concepts and beliefs bequeathed to us by the Enlightenmentis no longer intellectually tenable or practically viable. Our attempt to live individualistically, hedonistically, and rationally has failed utterly, causing a comprehensive crisis that is at once political, military, economic, ecological, ethical, psychological,...

*Immoderate Greatness* explains how a civilization's very magnitude conspires against it to cause downfall. Civilizations are hard-wired for self-destruction. They travel an arc from initial success to terminal decay and ultimate collapse due to intrinsic, inescapable biophysical limits combined with an inexorable trend toward moral decay and practical failure. Because our own civilization is global, its collapse will also be global, as well as uniquely devastating owing to the immensity of its population, complexity, and consumption. To avoid the common fate of all past civilizations will...

William Ophuls proposes a different way of thinking about governance. Inspired by architecture, he articulates a pattern language of politics-a set of thirty-five design criteria for constructing sane and humane polity. Since ancient times, human beings have asked a fundamental question: What is a good society, and how should it be governed? Plato's response was philosophical. In *The Republic*, he searched for an abstract notion of justice to guide political thought and action. Aristotle's response was empirical. In *The Politics*, he tried to discover which constitutions were more conducive...