World Made By Hand

Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, sets this novel in near-future rural New York. Catastrophes—peak oil, nuclear terrorism, economic crashes, social unrest, epidemic influenza and climate change—have demolished the infrastructure. Survivors are making do: reusing, recycling and mostly doing without. With federalism dead, feudalism re-evolves, religious cults and bandits hold sway and depression is the mood du jour. But Kunstler’s misanthropic hero offers some hope of the power of cleaving to traditional American civic principles. There’s an unexpected (and metaphysical) twist at the end of this engrossing and thought-provoking examination of the fate that may well await us.