The book draws heavily on Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies, which is a terrific book -- though I recall reading it a few years ago and concluding that Tainter's lessons didn't suggest that our society was in particularly great danger. Homer-Dixon feels otherwise. There's also a troubling reference to Stalin-apologist Eric Hobsbawm merely as an "eminent historian" -- talk about a guy who can argue for "the upside of down," -- but overall I think the book's pretty interesting. It's certainly an example of the phenomenon I described in my column:
As with some of the righty books from the 1990s, there's a curious push-pull here: Though these are warnings of catastrophes to come, there's a sense that to some extent those catastrophes involve society getting what it deserves for its sinful ways, perhaps coupled with an opportunity for purification in the wake of the crisis -- with the virtuously prepared having the upper hand, of course.
It's an interesting example of the kind of lefty apocalypticism I discussed 
