Fleeing Vesuvius

Feasta’s book Fleeing Vesuvius: Overcoming the Risks of Economic and Environmental Collapse draws together many of the ideas our members have developed over the years and applies them to a single question – how can we bring the world out of the mess in which it finds itself?

The book confronts this mess squarely, analysing its many aspects: the looming scarcity of essential resources such as fossil fuels – the lifeblood of the world economy; the financial crisis in Ireland and elsewhere; the collapse of the housing bubble; the urgent need for food security; and the enormous challenge of dealing with climate change.

The solutions it puts forward involve changes to our economy and financial system, but they go much further: this substantial, wide-ranging book also looks at the changes needed in how we think, how we use the land and how we relate to others, particularly those where we live.

While it doesn’t discount the complexity of the problems we face, Fleeing Vesuvius is practical and fundamentally optimistic. It will arm readers with the confidence and knowledge they need to develop new, workable alternatives to the old-style expanding economy and its supporting systems. It’s a book that can be read all the way through or used as a resource to dip in and out of.

As of November 2011 all the chapters of the original edition of Fleeing Vesuvius are available to read online at the book’s website.

An Australasian edition of the book was published in autumn 2011 by Living Economies. It has 100 extra pages of content by New Zealand authors. Excerpts from it are now also available at the book’s website.

Read Sean McDonagh’s speech from the book launch in November 2010

Go to book website

Order copies of Fleeing Vesuvius

Ordering in Ireland? Please buy copies from your local bookstore or order directly from our office.

Ordering in North America? Please order the North American edition from New Society Publishers, or at your local bookstore.

Ordering in Australasia? Please order the New Zealand edition, which includes 100 extra pages, from Living Economies.

Ordering from elsewhere? Please order copies from Green Books.

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Note: Feasta is a forum for exchanging ideas. By posting on its site Feasta agrees that the ideas expressed by authors are worthy of consideration. However, there is no one ‘Feasta line’. The views of the article do not necessarily represent the views of all Feasta members.