Customer Reviews

A Choice of Catastrophes: The Disasters That Threaten Our World

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In this book, Asimov explores and analyzes the different ways the world, or civilzation, could end (the "catastrophes") and estimates the likelihood and time frame of each one of them. He goes all the way from the macro-catastrophes (heat death of the universe) to the micro-catastrophes (disease and political turmoil).
Very interesting book that brings science and a dose of reality into this consideration of the ultimate demise of mankind.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book(Dutch translation). I had never before read Asimov, and although I imagined him as a "serious" science-fiction author, the subject and title of this book made me uncertain about what to expect... Would it go down the popular road of feeding on people's fear? As it turns out, there was no need to worry. Asimov uses a nicely balanced approach to this mass-appeal theme to touch many fields of science and even culture. His message is not one of hysteria, but a message of hope. He presents himself as a true Homo Universalis of our time. Not in the sense that he pretends to know everything about anything, the sort of omni-knowledge that died after the Renaissance. But in the sense that he argues like a true World Citizen. A member of the human race instead of belonging to this or that nation/religion/sex/whatever. Of course, the subject of the book lends itself very well for this. So my impression is that Asimov found it more important to awake this feeling in the readers, than to write a sort of disaster-encyclopedia. The book is meant to assist us in becoming conscious about our position in space and time. About our relation to the past, the future and all the phenomenons in the Universe that completely outscale us in size, violence and duration. It is meant to make us feel tiny and insignificant in one way. But certainly also to unite us in a collective battle against the indifferent laws of nature and evolution.

I would recommended this book to anyone with a broad view on the world around us.

I had read this book years ago and found it fascinating. In this book Azimov goes into exhaustive detail into how the earth and indeed the whole universe could come to an end. He has a chapter on how various religions think about the end of the world. He is mainly concerned though about scientific facts of possible endings.

This nonfiction work by Issac Asimov describes all the ways that the world could end, from the eventual collapse of the universe in the Big Crunch, to a boring ol' meteorite impact.

But never fear, you planetary hypochondriacs, for the great doctor patiently describes how horribly unlikely most of the scenarios are, and how to avoid the few remaining.

In true Asimov style, the information of the events are described play-by-play; from far back in history, when we first discovered the possibility of them occurring, to all that we have learned since then, information is derived from past information, so no one gets lost in technobabble. In fact, technobabble is even explained, so you too can learn how a black hole forms.

Recommended for fans of the website Exit Mundis, which has a similar concept, and for all other fans of the good doctor's work.

A range of disasters is covered here. Asimov begins with threats at the cosmic level, such as a reverse big bang, and works down to disasters that would destroy the solar system, and then only the earth. The last category include the least destructive and most managable dangers: those that disrupt our lives but would not wipe us out, such as pollution.

It became clear to me early on that this is not a true disaster book. We learn little about what these catastophes would actually do and how they might play out. Instead, Asimov concentrates on the scientific and mathematical possibilities and probabilities involved. A bizzare tone of optimism also permeates the book, as the author believes every problem can be solved and every danger avoided, if only mankind works together for the good of humanity. Not likely!

The young (or old) scientist with a global perspective will find this a great read, and all readers will learn a thing or two about how our end might come. But this is not really a disaster book by any means