Five timeless ecological titles from John Michael Greer
Sul Books, as a sisterhood of multiple imprints, is pleased to announce that new editions of popular ecological titles from renowned political theorist, award-winning author, and druid John Michael Greer are available again to our readers. And to celebrate this, we’re also offering an introductory discount of 20% for individual titles as well as an affordable special author collection option.
These new editions from John Michael Greer include the following:
The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered
Profoundly insightful and impeccably argued, this book is required reading for anyone interested in the intersection of the environment and the economy as we enter the twilight of the Age of Abundance.
Economics as if Survival Mattered
Renowned political theorist and author proposes a bold new economic paradigm based on the value of sustainability.
The Wealth of Nature proposes a new model of economics based on the integral value of ecology.
Building on the foundations of E.F. Schumacher's revolutionary "economics as if people mattered", this book examines the true cost of confusing money with wealth.
By analyzing the mistakes of contemporary economics, it shows how an economy centered on natural capital—the raw materials that support human life—can move our society toward a more productive relationship with the planet that sustains us all.
The Wealth of Nature suggests public policy initiatives and personal choices that can help alleviate the economic impact of peak oil. These strategies must address not only financial concerns, but the issues of resource depletion and pollution.
Profoundly insightful and impeccably argued, this book is required reading for anyone interested in the intersection of the environment and the economy as we enter the twilight of the Age of Abundance.
The Retro Future: Looking to the Past to Reinvent the Future
To most people paying attention to the collision between industrial society and the hard limits of a finite planet, it’s clear that things are going very, very wrong. We no longer have unlimited time and resources to deal with the crises that define our future, and the options are limited to the tools we have on hand right now. This book is about one very powerful option: deliberate technological regression.
Looking to the Past to Reinvent the Future
An examination to discover a solution for the troubles of our modern age: technical regression.
To most people paying attention to the collision between industrial society and the hard limits of a finite planet, it’s clear that things are going very, very wrong. We no longer have unlimited time and resources to deal with the crises that define our future, and the options are limited to the tools we have on hand right now.
This book is about one very powerful option: deliberate technological regression.
Technological regression isn’t about “going back”—it’s about using the past as a resource to meet the needs of the present. It starts from the recognition that older technologies generally use fewer resources and cost less than modern equivalents, and it embraces the heresy of technological choice—our ability to choose or refuse the technologies pushed by corporate interests.
People are already ditching smartphones and going back to “dumb phones” and land lines and e-book sales are declining while printed books rebound. Clear signs among many that blind faith in progress is faltering and opening up the possibility that the best way forward may well involve going back.
A must-read for anyone willing to think the unthinkable and embrace the possibilities of a retro future.
The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the World
The Long Descent follows the ragged course of decline that has brought every previous civilization to its end, and is doing the same with ours. It also offers crucial insights into what individuals, families, small groups, and local communities can do to brace themselves for the changes to come.
A User's Guide to the End of the World
The visionary classic that traces out the twilight of the petroleum age
In 2008, as the price of crude oil spiked to record levels, John Michael Greer's The Long Descent pushed past the stereotyped debates of the time to offer a harrowing but hopeful vision of the future of industrial society.
As believers in perpetual progress insisted that something would turn up to replace depleting petroleum reserves, and believers in apocalypse insisted just as fervently that the spike in oil prices would send industrial society crashing down in ruin overnight, Greer's epochal book reframed the entire debate in terms of the great rhythm of rise and fall the marks the history of civilizations.
The Long Descent follows the ragged course of decline that has brought every previous civilization to its end, and is doing the same with ours.
It takes the average civilization one to three hundred years to descend from its peak into a dark age out of which new civilizations will be born, and that same process is visibly under way in our own lives.
The global challenges facing industrial civilization are not problems that we can solve, but predicaments that all of us must live with, as our societies stumble down the long slope to the deindustrial future.
Much can still be done as the petroleum age winds down, and the interval between one spike in oil prices and the next offers opportunities that will no longer be available when the price of everything made from petroleum starts soaring again — as it will.
The Long Descent offers crucial insights into what individuals, families, small groups, and local communities can do to brace themselves for the changes to come.
The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning of a Post-Peak World
Written in three parts, the book places the present crisis of the industrial world in its historical and ecological context in part one; part two explores the toolkit for Ecotechnic Age, and part three opens a door to the complexity of future visions. For anyone concerned about peak oil and the future of the industrial society, this book provides a solid analysis of how we got to where we are, and a practical toolkit to prepare for the future.
Envisioning of a Post-Peak World
How to survive and thrive in the post-industrial age
In response to the coming impact of peak oil, John Michael Greer helps us envision the transition from an industrial society to a sustainable ecotechnic world-not returning to the past, but creating a society that supports relatively advanced technology on a sustainable resource base.
Fusing human ecology and history, this book challenges assumptions held by mainstream and alternative thinkers about the evolution of human societies. Human societies, like ecosystems, evolve in complex and unpredictable ways, making it futile to try to impose rigid ideological forms on the patterns of evolutionary change. Instead, social change must explore many pathways over which we have no control. The troubling and exhilarating prospect of an open-ended future, he proposes, requires dissensus-a deliberate acceptance of radical diversity that widens the range of potential approaches to infinity.
Written in three parts, the book places the present crisis of the industrial world in its historical and ecological context in part one; part two explores the toolkit for Ecotechnic Age, and part three opens a door to the complexity of future visions.
For anyone concerned about peak oil and the future of the industrial society, this book provides a solid analysis of how we got to where we are, and a practical toolkit to prepare for the future.
After Progress: Reason and Religion at the End of the Industrial Age
Unfortunately, progress as we've known it has been entirely dependent on the breakneck exploitation of half a billion years of stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels. As the age of this cheap, abundant energy draws to a close, progress is grinding to a halt. Unforgiving planetary limits are teaching us that our blind faith in endless exponential growth is a dangerous myth.With a startling examination of the role our belief systems play in our collective fate, John Michael Greer makes a persuasive argument for seeking new sources of meaning, value, and hope for the era ahead.
Reason and Religion at the End of the Industrial Age
The acclaimed climate futurist examines our unquestioning faith in progress, and its limits in the face of peak oil and climate change.
Since the Industrial Age began, scientific and technological progress has been nothing short of miraculous. As a result, progress itself has become the new religion of the West. Our faith in it is so complete that many of us ignore the perils of peak oil and climate change, believing that our lab-coated high priests will surely bring forth yet another miracle to save us all.
Unfortunately, progress as we've known it has been entirely dependent on the breakneck exploitation of half a billion years of stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels. As the age of this cheap, abundant energy draws to a close, progress is grinding to a halt. Unforgiving planetary limits are teaching us that our blind faith in endless exponential growth is a dangerous myth.
After Progress addresses this looming paradigm shift, exploring the shape of history from a perspective on the far side of the coming crisis. With a startling examination of the role our belief systems play in our collective fate, John Michael Greer makes a persuasive argument for seeking new sources of meaning, value, and hope for the era ahead.
Collection: Ecological Books by John Michael Greer
Each of these five titles can be purchased either individually or combined into this author collection bundle for 33% off their cover price (no discount code required for this.
Five books on thriving in a changed world
from renowned political theorist, award-winning author, and druid John Michael Greer
Sul Books is pleased to be the publisher of five important books on understanding and thriving in our post-industrial world.
These crucial and transformative guides, republished in new editions through our Sphinx imprint, are each available either separately or economically bundled together in this collection, which includes:
The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered
The Retro Future: Looking to the Past to Reinvent the Future
The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the World
The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning of a Post-Peak World
After Progress: Reason and Religion at the End of the Industrial Age
Each of these titles retails individually for 30 US, but cost only $20 US when purchased as part of this collection for a total savings of $50 US.
More Sale Information
For 20% off single edition purchases, please use code GREER2025
The 33% reduction on the Ecological Books Collection is already applied to its price — no code is required.
And in addition, please note that all digital titles from Ritona and Gods&Radicals Press are also on sale. Save 25% with code EQUINOX25. (And yes! Multiple codes can be used on one order).