Crawling from the Wreckage — Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer is cheering up. Sure, the past decade has had more than its share of stupid wars, obsessions about terrorism, denial about climate change, rapacious turbo-capitalism, and lies, lies, lies. But signs of progress actually do abound. While the world is far from perfect as we embark on a fresh decade, Dyer believes that the "sense of sliding out of control towards ten different kinds of disaster has gone." When things go wrong it's always easy to pin blame -- but singling out the forces that lead to positive change can be trickier.

In this illuminating collection of columns from the last five years, Gwynne Dyer ferrets out the signs of hope -- without overlooking the issues that remain seemingly intractable. Mining the events of recent history, Dyer contextualizes the recent past and anticipates what the future might have in store. This journalist's beat is global: from Africa to South America, from Europe to the Middle East, and any other region with a political pulse.

Acerbic and iconoclastic, Dyer has never been afraid to call 'em like he sees 'em -- and we are all the better for his trademark candour and the breadth of his knowledge and expertise. For anyone seeking to understand the larger forces that shape our society and our world, Crawling from the Wreckage makes for necessary reading.