Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration-and Why It's Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives

by Danny Dorling, Kirsten McClure (Illustrator)

Overview

The end of our high-growth world was underway well before COVID-19 arrived. In this powerful and timely argument, Danny Dorling demonstrates the benefits of a larger, ongoing societal slowdown

Drawing from an incredibly rich trove of global data, this groundbreaking book reveals that human progress has been slowing down since the early 1970s. Danny Dorling uses compelling visualizations to illustrate how fertility rates, growth in GDP per person, and even the frequency of new social movements have all steadily declined over the last few generations.
 
Perhaps most surprising of all is the fact that even as new technologies frequently reshape our everyday lives and are widely believed to be propelling our civilization into new and uncharted waters, the rate of technological progress is also rapidly dropping. Rather than lament this turn of events, Dorling embraces it as a moment of promise and a move toward stability, and he notes that many of the older great strides in progress that have defined recent history also brought with them widespread warfare, divided societies, and massive inequality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300243406
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	05/19/2020
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. His previous books include Inequality and the 1% and The Equality Effect.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Chapter 1 To Worry: Imaginatively 1

Chapter 2 The Slowing Down: Of Almost Everything 16

Chapter 3 Debt: A Decelerating Sign of the Slowdown 37

Chapter 4 Data: The Deluge of Less and Less That Is New 64

Chapter 5 Climate: industry, War, Carbon, and Chaos 89

Chapter 6 Temperature: The Catastrophic Exception 120

Chapter 7 Demographics: Hitting the Population Brakes 140

Chapter 8 Fertility: The Greatest Slowdown of All Time 180

Chapter 9 Economics: Stabilizing Standards of Living 230

Chapter 10 Geopolitics: In an Age of Slowdown 262

Chapter 11 Life: After the Great Acceleration 287

Chapter 12 People: Coalition and Catfish 314

Appendix: How to Read and Draw a Timeline 333

Notes 339

List of Figures and Tables 371

Index 375

Editorial Reviews

Blinded by a cult of progress, many of us can’t see the slowdown that Dorling makes clear. A true public intellectual, he shows that, if we survive, life will be slower—and possibly better.”—Paul Chatterton, author of Unlocking Sustainable Cities: A Manifesto for Real Change

“Slowdown is a new standard for visually understanding human history and social change. Using beautifully illustrated graphs, Danny Dorling provides a broad perspective on long-term social changes, the limits of growth, and widening inequalities, and emphasizes the importance of adapting to this slowdown.”—Tomoki Nakaya, author of The Atlas of Health Inequalities in Japan
 

“A spellbinding book that will almost certainly make you reconsider what you thought was happening in and to the world, and then think again about where we might be heading.“—Juliette Powell, author of 33 Million People in the Room
 

“Powerful, thought-provoking, and timely. Professor Dorling brilliantly exposes how spiraling work intensity, alongside bumper profits and freedoms for capital, cannot sustain people and planet. From stronger unions to a greener economy, he compellingly shows how we can choose a more hopeful and humane future.”—Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress
 

“Dorling’s optimism is infectious as he brilliantly explores the huge challenges of a slowing pace of growth while the world transitions to a new ‘normal’ of stable and then shrinking populations.”—Vicky Pryce, author of Women vs Capitalism 
 

From the Publisher

04/24/2020

Dorling (geography, Oxford; Inequality & The 1%; Population 10 Billion) contends that global population growth is slowing. He explains the impact that this slowdown will have on the human psyche, the environment, and the economy. To illustrate slower growth, he includes over 60 intricate time lines plotting trends with loops, spirals, and even coiling snakes. He uses them to show that growth is decelerating in areas including fertility, life expectancy, average adult height, debt, information accumulation, technical innovation, and GDP. Dorling goes beyond describing the slowdown to recommend ways of achieving a more equitable and sustainable society. He proffers that the slowdown will offer an unhurried lifestyle with better work-life balance, but that it has so far had a marginal effect on CO2 emissions and the rise in global temperatures that directly impact ecosystem destruction. His discussion of plagues and pandemics is timely. VERDICT Dorling's thought-provoking findings, fears, and hopes for the future are an excellent introduction for both students and a wider audience interested in the consequences of shifting demographics.—Lawrence Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA

Library Journal

Narrating quickly and precisely, Liam Gerrard opens this audiobook with an overwhelming stream of statistics and charts. The complex material, combined with his rapid delivery, makes it hard, at first, for the author’s focus to become clear. But it’s a friendly performance, notable for Gerrard’s beguiling mix of boyish charm and enthusiasm. As the audio unfolds and the author’s purpose becomes clearer, Gerrard’s delivery and even his pacing sound perfect for this kind of writing. The author, a professor of social geography, says rapid economic and population expansion is a sugar high that always slows and usually ends badly. With startling historical evidence, he describes the negative outcomes—war, famine, inequality, and social conflict—and charts an optimistic course for living within our planet’s means. T.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile

Narrating quickly and precisely, Liam Gerrard opens this audiobook with an overwhelming stream of statistics and charts. The complex material, combined with his rapid delivery, makes it hard, at first, for the author’s focus to become clear. But it’s a friendly performance, notable for Gerrard’s beguiling mix of boyish charm and enthusiasm. As the audio unfolds and the author’s purpose becomes clearer, Gerrard’s delivery and even his pacing sound perfect for this kind of writing. The author, a professor of social geography, says rapid economic and population expansion is a sugar high that always slows and usually ends badly. With startling historical evidence, he describes the negative outcomes—war, famine, inequality, and social conflict—and charts an optimistic course for living within our planet’s means. T.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile