or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Sell Back Your Copy
For a $2.30 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change [Paperback]

William R. Catton (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)

List Price: $28.00
Price: $26.88 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $1.12 (4%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Monday, January 30? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --  
Paperback $26.88  

Frequently Bought Together

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change + Bottleneck : Humanity's Impending Impasse + The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology)
Price For All Three: $67.51

Show availability and shipping details

Buy the selected items together
  • In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

  • Bottleneck : Humanity's Impending Impasse $16.40

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology) $24.23

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

Review

@CATTON\Overshoot@"Perhaps at no time in human history has there been a more compelling need to re-examine public assumptions and to change national expectations. Overshoot is a book that contributes to this vital task." -- Stewart Udall, former Secretary of the Interior

Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: University of Illinois Press (June 1, 1982)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0252009886
  • ISBN-13: 978-0252009884
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Authors

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

28 Reviews
5 star:
 (25)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 97 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece, offers solution for THE problem of our time, April 8, 2005
By 
J. Mann (southwestern NH) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (Paperback)
I am astonished at the quality of this book, which is about the eighth book in a personal reading program that included Paul Roberts' The End of Oil, Kenneth Deffeyes' Beyond Oil, Jared Diamon's Collapse, Cottrell's Energy and Society, Michael Klare's Blood and Oil, and others, all extremely good and relevant books. The task this author undertakes is to help readers find a new perspective from which to constructively and usefully interpret inevitable and major changes the world around us. By taking this approach, the author is providing the very essential tool we need to cope with these changes.
The issue is our ecological footprint.
Catton uses the term "Age of Exuberance" to represent the time since 1492 when first a newly discovered hemisphere and then the invention of fossil-fuel-driven machines allowed Old-World humans to escape the constraints imposed by a population roughly at earth's carrying capacity, and instead to grow (and philosophize and emote) expansively. He then reminds us that we are soon to be squeezed by the twin jaws of excessive population and exhausted resources, as our current population is utterly dependent on the mining and burning of fossil energy and its use to exploit earth's resources in general. In spring 2005, the buzz about "the end of cheap energy" is reaching quite a pitch, and when and if the "peak oil" scenario (or other environmental limit-event) is reached, the impact on our social / political world will be enormous. Already the US is brandishing and using its superior weaponry to sieze control of oil assets; this same kind of desperate struggle may well erupt at all levels of society if we don't find a way to identify the problem, anticipate its consequences, and find solutions. Catton offers a perspective based on biology / ecology -- not bad, since we are indeed animals in an ecology and we are indeed subject to the iron laws of nature and physics. With this perspective we can avoid ending up screaming nonsense at each other when changes begin to get scary. My urgent recommendation is, read this G.D. book and do it now.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect, A Masterpiece, June 5, 2009
By 
This review is from: Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (Paperback)
'Essential Reading' is a phrase applied to just about every third book published these days, but this 1980 work remains probably the most essential of our time. It gives you the straight truth with simplicity and wisdom, and its cumulative effect on the reader is very strong, despite a very unadorned writing style.

Catton's basic approach starts off sounding a little Malthusian: we humans are just one more animal on this planet, and our overpopulation of it relative to what can realistically be supported is going to start placing us under great pressure, as would happen with any other animal in the same boat. Our methods of maintaining our numbers are gradually wiping out the biodiversity we need for our civilization to sustain itself.

This process cannot continue indefinitely, it must crash -- and such a crash would be natural and normal, even commonplace. It can be graphed happening time and again to numerous species which overshoot their necessary resource base. They begin with the exuberance of having more than enough support to grow, but then this growth takes them past the point at which sufficient resources are available, and they die off. This is nature's way, and we should not think we are immune.

Yeast making wine in a vat will be subject to the same process, a surge and then a sudden die-off. It happened to humanity on Easter Island (for example), and now it is happening to us. We can take a lesson from yeast if we will, and recognize the process. "We need a clear-headed ecological interpretation of history," says the author at the start (and of course goes on to provide an excellent one.)

Growth, says Catton, has become a kind of disease in our recent history. That very 'progress' which we are being sold as a solution to every ill has turned us from Homo Sapiens into Homo Colossus, an animal which requires more and yet more support, and can absolutely count on not getting it forever.

A key Catton concept is 'carrying capacity' -- the amount of a species that an environment will support. If those figures are exceeded, die-off is the inevitable result. Our technological cleverness has time and again expanded the available carrying capacity, hence our massive numbers on this planet. We assume we can continue that curve indefinitely, but that won't do: the augmentation of carrying capacity that the new technologies represents is a purely temporary drawdown. Withdrawing fossil fuel capital we cannot replace is a finite process with a definite endpoint. We can (and should) confidently expect all drawdown-based 'progress' to vanish, and with it, our ability to support the lifestyle we currently live. (The Great Depression, for Catton, was a mere 'preview' of what we are letting ourselves in for).


I've made the book sound ecological and perhaps rather conventional-sounding today -- but it's so much more, because it was written not by an ecologist but by a sociologist. Catton doesn't merely present the bare environmental facts. What interests him is the way these rule our behaviour, just as the behaviour of all animals interweaves with the environment that sustains them. What have the recent exuberant centuries done to our culture, to the way we relate to ourselves, to the stories we are telling? And what will happen to that culture now, in the absence of the exuberance that formed it?

We have formed a feeling of limitlessness 'out there', ready to exploit, which is not really justified by our recent history. Analyzing the 70s (at the end of which he was writing) with its oil spikes and military depredations, Catton recasts all the players as colonies of human animals jockeying for access to resources. The reader is taught to 'see ecologically', a point of view that is always relevant for the reason that life seeks to sustain itself by reliable and predictable means. These forces can clearly be seen driving history.

So our culture will change, in a way that is bound to make us feel it where it hurts, because we will be forced to admit that progress of the kind we have had in recent centuries is not going to continue indefinitely -- it would be physically impossible. Again looking at it societally, Catton points out that the greatest temptation in a time of decline will be to abandon the ecologically neutral view and blame somebody for all this. Emotional tantrums will turn our already difficult fate into a cruel one. The choice is ours. Looking for scapegoats is so easy and so destructive, when in fact the entire process has been a perfectly natural one.

What we need is lucid foreknowledge, courage, and stoicism (in the original sense of philosophical acceptance of fate). "Those who don't see ecologically see antagonistically," says Catton simply, and adds that, "barring human extinction, there will never come to an end man's need for enlightened self-restraint."

Despite a complete lack of any 'spiritual' viewpoint, Catton's book thus builds a considerable prophetic force. 'Ecological modesty' is our true safety. We are the animal that is smart enough to see this, but are we smart enough to act on it? Catton wants us to assume our situation is just as bad as it very well might be. Let's face it knowing that it is a naturally occurring process, rather than hunting for a human to hate. That way, we will actually achieve what we have so often boasted of in the recent past, and transcend our animalistic instincts to make a better world.


Reading this book today is really an amazing experience. It takes one out of the media blame bubble and the half-baked schemes of deliverance being concocted now, into an earlier time when clear-sightedness, if not heeded, was at least being practiced and practiced well. It's like moving from cans of coca cola, bizarre health drinks and exotic teas to a simple glass of clear water. We do sorely need it. Of course this book's audience -- never large apparently -- is growing these days. (Such modern authors as John Michael Greer are plainly taking their approaches from Catton to a great extent.)

This book will prepare you to understand the movements of your time, and to deal with them philosophically and psychologically. To see reality is wisdom, and I will be honest, I find more wisdom in this book than in many that are termed 'wisdom literature'. You really *must* read it, and there is no other volume in the world of which I would say that. I've barely managed to get anything of it across really. I genuinely believe the future might depend on how many people have these ideas in mind, and I'm not being dramatic in saying that, just honest.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book!, July 23, 2004
By 
This review is from: Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (Paperback)
If you have found your way to this book, then I assume that you are aware that the "resources" of our world cannot possibly sustain anything close to our current way of life. William Catton's book, written in 1980, remains as visionary and relevant today as the day it was written. "Overshoot" provides a solid background of research and a realistic view of what the likely consequences of humanity's failure to notice that we have entered into "overshoot" of the earth's carrying capacity. As a companion to Charles Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies" and Rees & Wackernagel's "Ecological Footprint," this book rounds out a complete education in the fix we humans have created for ourselves - a real challenge, well documented by Catton.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
On the banks of the Volga in 1921 a refugee community was visited by an American newspaper correspondent who had come to write about the Russian famine. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
phantom carrying capacity, carrying capacity surplus, temporary carrying capacity, cornucopian paradigm, permanent carrying capacity, carrying capacity deficit, fish acreage, ghost acreage, detritus ecosystem, trade acreage, drawdown method, takeover method, finite habitat, detachable organs, abiotic substances, human carrying capacity, new ecological paradigm, collective adaptation, biotic potential, seral stage, exhaustible resources
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, New World, United States, Old World, World War, United Nations, Easter Island, New Zealand, Oxford University Press, Scientific American, Great Depression, Green Revolution, President Carter, San Francisco, Thomas Jefferson, Earth Hunger, Free Press, Houghton Mifflin, Middle East, Ann Arbor, Civil War, Industrial Revolution, James Watt, North Sea, Random House
New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:




What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject