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Written when this legendary author of classics including The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Cities and the Wealth of Nations had already entered her 80s, Dark Age Ahead draws on a lifetime of astute observation to identify factors such as the erosion of community and family and the lack of public fiscal accountability as the true harbingers of an unhealthy cultural base. Jacobs, whose own formal education ended with a high school diploma and a year-long unpaid Depression-era apprenticeship at a Pennsylvania newspaper, identifies the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next as vitally important, and sees the trend towards replacing intellectual mentorship with what she calls "credentialing" at universities and other institutions of higher education as very dangerous indeed. "My impression is that university-educated parents or grandparents of students presently in university do not realize how much the experience has changed since their own student days, nor do the students themselves, since they have not experienced anything else," Jacobs writes. "Only faculty who have lived through the loss realize what has been lost. A vigorous culture capable of making corrective, stabilizing changes depends heavily on its educated people, and especially upon their critical capacities and depth of understanding."
These and other factors are discussed with formidable clarity and insight in Jacobs's trademark elegant, plain-language prose. Rather than disrupting the flow of her extensively indexed main narrative analysis with dense notes, the Toronto-based visionary presents her references in a 47-page parallel text following the book's initial 176 pages. "This is both a gloomy and a hopeful book," the modern-day Cassandra notes; reading it is a pleasure. --Deirdre Hanna --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking,
By "cbatt75" (Edmonton, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dark Age Ahead (Hardcover)
A brief, but thorough outline of the author's view of the direction that Western Civilization (American in particular) appears to be headed. However, unlike what the editorial reviews would've had me believe, I did not find very much optimism contained within. In fact, I found it rather depressing. The book spends six chapters outlining the problems and their "proofs" and a single thin chapter on what to do about it. I suspect that like most poli-sci-economic-stuff that is found in "normal" bookstores, the intended audience is armchair philosophers, pundits, and anyone who can read that happens to reside in N. America or Western Europe (of which I must be one, as I've bothered to write this silly review). If so, then this book delivers, and in the best way possible. Five "pillars of [Western] culture" are identified: Each has a chapter devoted to explaining how it is under assault. This may sound dry, but the author's style is conversational and the medicine goes down easy. Each chapter is a comfortable, rambling, casually meandering journey to the point. And along the way it forces one to think critically. (Perhaps Jane Jacobs is the Mary Poppins of economics. Anyhow...) The book was insightful and inspirational. By the time I was finished, I'd written a ton of questions and notes for further exploration. Perhaps this is the optimistic quality mentioned by other reviewers. Unfortunately, I wan't impressed with the final chapter, "Unwinding vicious spirals". It just isn't enough. As is typical, it is easy to point out problems, but difficult to provide solutions. Then again, perhaps it would be a waste of time to try to provide a one-size-fits-all solution as each situation is different and requires local resources to be freed to step-up and solve the problem for themselves. Reading the book will help clarify that last statement. Hopefully, the solution defficiency will help inspire the smarter people of my generation to arrive at solutions that expand upon the core of the ideas presented in the chapter. I'm deffinately not one of those, but at least it inspired me to look into many of the ideas and perhaps contribute some small thing. Highly recommended, if only to impress your friends around the watercooler with concepts such as "import replacement" and "jitneys vs. tradtional mass transit". (It'll also make you cooler, and better looking!)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pleased with purchase,
This review is from: Dark Age Ahead (Paperback)
The book is awesome! I'm only about 20 pages in but it is so interesting. On arrival it was in great condition.
5 of 9 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Personal random thoughts...,
By Knadian (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dark Age Ahead (Hardcover)
This book is really more of a personal reflection on today's society than a work of research. I found that it lacks foundation and is practicaly void of historical facts. Although broken down in five chapters, the book at times reads more like a collection of random thoughts without any real structure about the sujbect at hand - a defenitive lack of editorial skills in my opinion. That said, it does offer the reader something to think about, which does earn the book a couple stars!
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