Summary for Collapse of Western Civilization - Book Report/Review Example

In The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, the authors illustrate the basic questions why the modern liberal democracies have failed to address the major threats that our species experience, which is a panacea to anthropogenic climate change. This is despite the present technological and scientific advances of the Western liberal democracies. Instead of passing the required information through the more conservative social science approach, Oreskes and Conway illustrate their analysis through an essay presented by a 2349 future historian.

The future historian in the essay strives to address the question why the present western civilization ignored the response to the man-influenced climate change, in spite of having adequate understanding of the related threats. The future voice also shows a literary technique, that has been used to enhance good effect in several other literary and film works like the Age of Stupid. In the film, Pete Postlethwaite replays images of the present hubris in the time of climate catastrophe. The fictional author in the book under analysis, The Collapse of Western Civilization, further illustrates that the victims of the chronic negative climate change effects in human history, adequately understood the reasons for the environmental changes.

The historian victims effectively chronicled environmental change effects, because they understood the fossil fuel combustion influence on the climate change. Historical trends also illustrates that the western civilization possessed technological competencies required to effectively implement the renewable energy transition. However, the implementation of the available technology was ignored during that period (Oreskes & Conway 35). In studying the future decline of western civilization, Oreskes and Conway show the present day facts that