cover image The Once and Future Superpower: How to Restore America's Economic, Energy, and Environmental Security

The Once and Future Superpower: How to Restore America's Economic, Energy, and Environmental Security

Joseph J. Romm. William Morrow & Company, $23 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-688-11868-6

With its wealth of concrete proposals, this remarkable, progressive blueprint for economic transformation stands high above most books about restoring American competitiveness. Romm, a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Institute who has taught at Columbia University, emphasizes rebuilding the United States' infrastructure, reducing wasteful energy consumption, switching to nonpolluting energy sources like wind and sunlight and revitalizing American manufacturing through investment in education, worker training and flexible, fast-cycle production methods that minimize wasted time and effort. He argues that the U.S. could cut its military budget in half with no harm to national security, thus freeing resources to devote to technology and people. He insists that the federal government has a critical role to play in fostering an ``industrial ecosystem'' aimed at drastically reducing pollution and the use of all resources. And he outlines a foreign-aid policy to promote sustainable development. This vitally important book should be required reading for the next President. First serial to Forbes. (Sept.)