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.

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 in favor of 'dumb phones' and land lines and eBook 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.

John Michael Greer, one of the most influential authors exploring the future of industrial society, writes the widely cited blog The Archdruid Report. He has authored more than forty books including The Long Descent and Dark Age America. He lives in Cumberland, MD, an old mill town in the Appalachians, with his wife Sara.

Author: John Michael Greer
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 09/12/2017
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780865718661


Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2018

About the Author
John Michael Greer is a scholar of ecological history, an award-winning author and an internationally renowned Peak Oil theorist whose blog, The Archdruid Report, has become one of the most widely cited online resources dealing with the future of industrial society. He is a certified Master Conserver, an organic gardener, and has been active in the alternative spirituality movement for more than 25 years. John lives in Cumberland, MD.