Rating: 
Summary: A must read
Review: An excellent resource for understanding the challenges we are facing in the 21st century. Homer-Dixon's book is accessible, precise and provides strong recommendations for preparing for the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Over-rated, but
Review: Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good book. I'd give it 5 stars for social relevance, and 3 stars for 'all things being equal'. But I'm giving it only 2 here because it was so highly recommended by the folks at the bookstore where I bought it. Given the kudos, at the store and inside the cover, I was expecting something really cutting edge, a landmark work of sorts. As for as those books go, this book is truly subpar. My problem is that I learned all this before, before even those times when the 'environment' because trendy in the liberal arts. My undergrad degree was in International Studies, with minors in Economics, Political Science and Sociology, and as such, this book reads more like a review for me than anything else. This would be a great book for somebody at the sophomore level of liberal arts education. It's basically a 200-level read; a bit too far ahead for those who don't know their micros from their macros, yet far too superficial on any given topic to qualify for upper level material. It would be great for those so-called practical types - our business and vocational types - who have never thought much or very deeply about those 'global' issues they hear discussed on CNN daily and Sunday morning whenever a group of DCers gather somewhere in Washington and indulge themselves in what I call 'smart talk'. As one who has lived and breathed this kind of material for many years, I can attest to the fact that this is stuff that a lot of people, most in fact, do need to gain exposure to. I have no strong criticisms of the book; I just think it's overrated. Even the central thesis of an ingenuity gap, (while novel and expounded upon in a book that's basically as long as a novel itself), is hardly original nor especially clever. Anyone close to these subjects invariably asks questions relating the books core: Do we have the ability to deal with the messes we're creating in time to undo the damage we're doing? Do we have the will? Why do I invoke the term 'clever': because anyone close to academia knows that professors are constantly trying to find some new spin or twist to call their own. I'm not accusing the author of that kind of narcissism here - I don't think that's his intention at all, actually - but given the pervasiveness of those kinds of attempts in the world of social theorists, his play on the 'ingenuity gap' concept does beg comparisons. Qualitatively speaking, I find this particular innovation very average. If there was one thing I didn't like about the book it would be its introspective quality, eg, 'Seeing Las Vegas made me think of the world at large.' 'Seeing those buildings at Canary Warf made me think of the world at large.' Some of this would be fine but I thought this was overdone. Then again, it actually suits the mindset of the readers for whom I think this book is most well-suited: college sophomores who are in the process of mind expansion, a process which is largely sustained by intellectual epiphanies. Ultimately though, these criticisms could be rightly regarded as unfair and petty. There's no doubting that this book has immense relevance; it touches on a subject that can hardly be exceeded in terms of overall importance. Perhaps the most relevant aspect of it is the author's sense of realism: without saying it explicitly he leads us to a conclusion which any sane and truly honest person must come to. We're biting off way more than we can chew, and it really might be too late to undo what will turn out to be some major and permanent damage.
Rating: 
Summary: CAN WE SAVE MAN FROM EXTINCTION?
Review: I first became acquainted with the extraordinary book "The Ingenuity Gap" by Thomas Homer-Dixon on Pacifica Radio, KPFK Los Angeles, on the "Free Forum" show during a one hour interview with the author. Although I am a voracious reader, I never heard such a cogent argument that the complexity and interactivity of the ecosystem, technological systems, and social and political institutions may prevent us from solving incredibly difficult problems such as global warming, declining potable water sources, declining oil supplies, depletion of our top soil, and of recent concern to us, but not new to many others, home terrorism. Ironically the incredible advance in communication technology according to Homer-Dixon has made it much more difficult for us to combat terrorists as seen for many years with the Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka and more recent years Osama Bin Laden. They can be supplied with money from any part of the world and easily find individuals and countries willing to supply highly sophisticated and deadly arms for the right price. It also allows small special interest groups to thwart government policies for the public good such as environmental policies and helps to keep inappropriate politicians in power. Although "The Ingenuity Gap" has been well written, it must be read slowly to fully absorb the incredible amount of information and concepts contained in Homer-Dixon's enormously important book.
Rating:
Summary: Probably one of the best scholastic works I've ever read
Review: I grabbed this book in a duty free store in Asia and read it all the way back to the US. Needless to say that despite it being an academic book, it was very engrossing and interesting to read. After the first few chapters, I felt both helpless that we're moving at such a pace and have constructed a society where our ingenuity for solving problems is far less than the complexity of the problems and yet optimistic that someone brilliant was able to write a book of this caliber and it was fairly understandable. At times I found it hard to believe I was reading an academic book because it was just a very well written book (and highly researched with dozens of pages of endnotes). I would highly recommend this book to thinkers and public policy students and professionals and to anyone who would appreciate a better understanding of the complexity of the world around them.
Rating: 
Summary: Chicken Little writes a book....
Review: Not a bad book by any means, eloquently writting, well researched, and Dixon often adds a well fit personal perspective and experience to his points. Still there just does not seem to be anything new here, large parts read like a pessimistic first year course in Earth Sciences or Economics, mosty of the "clear cutting is bad" variety. Beyond that, and the admitted "well duh!" premise of the book itself, little else stands out as anything more then speculative musings of the author that do not follow from the evidence he presents to any conclusive degree.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing is easy...
Review: The short answer to Homer-Dixon's question in the subtitle of his book "Can we solve the problems of the future?" is: it depends. INGENUITY GAP is an exploration of a large number of major and increasingly complex problems facing human society. We will require all the ingenuity and political will that we can muster to deal with these successfully. An ingenuity gap is the difference between "the set of instructions" needed to find solutions for specific problems and the capacity of the people, community or state to take the right actions in solving them. As the problems become increasingly multifaceted the development of the matching sets of instructions require more talent and competence. Ingenuity comes in two forms - technical and social. One without the other will not provide us with lasting solutions. Technical solutions might even lead us down a garden path without complementary social ingenuity. It is the latter that guarantees results taking economic, ecological and cultural needs into account. To make his point, Homer-Dixon explores a wide range of examples demonstrating tremendous levels of ingenuity at work all over the world - both technical and social. His contention is that they are available to us if we look properly. H-D, or Tad as he is usually called, takes us on a tour around the planet, using concrete examples to amplify his argument. Obviously, the result is not your usual travelogue and we are not visiting popular vacation spots or tourist attractions. Visiting Vegas, London's Canary Wharf or Patna, India, he believes that a personalized approach facilitates the following of his arguments. While some reviewers have criticized that H-D places himself too much into the story, it nonetheless contributes to the readability of the often exceedingly complicated issues he is addressing. He also conveys his own learning through interviews with some of the foremost scientists in the various fields he covers: from soil scientists to climatologists, from computer science to economy and architecture. His in depth deductions from the wide range of interviews with scientists represent one of the highlights of the book. For example, while exploring the latest research into the human brain as the central point for ingenuity development, Tad takes his questions to one of the world's leading experts on frontal lobes, Donald Stuss. His conversations with Stuss provide fascinating insights in the importance of frontal lobe abilities to process change and integrate experiences and learning. This part of the brain handles our creative and intellectual capabilities. With aging, the ability of the brain to absorb new information lessens while the ability to digest and process complex interrelationships increases. His conclusions are far reaching - changing the way we assess leadership and identify those who are best qualified to meet the challenges of our corporate and administrative hierarchies. After each of these in-depth conversations, H-D reflects on the substance of the dialogue and returns to his overall theme - how can we minimize the ingenuity gap that is widening all the time. Tad groups his book into sections, each addressing different aspects and disciplines from which to review the ingenuity requirements of the modern world. He depicts environmental problems and those related to continuing rapid population growth, which to him is a major challenge for the planet's future. He does not have a lot of patience with the 'economic optimists' or the 'techno-hubris'. He expands on incidences which demonstrate that a single-minded and, in some way, naïve belief that technological advance alone is capable of solving the world's problems will fail. It's impossibleto do justice here to the many strands of global analysis that Homer-Dixon presents the reader with. His many years of research, in particular into environmental scarcity and civil violence allow him to assess ingenuity gaps from many different angles. The criticism that he does not supply adequate answers and does not show a way forward, is oversimplifying what H-D is attempting to achieve. The modern world is at a level of complexity that no one person can comprehend. As a consequence, it will take the ingenuity and political will of many to address the wide range of issues confronting us. In the pursuit of answers, he urges intellectual humility and thinking outside the box. He encourages his readers to take up the challenges, explore them further, and question any simple or easy solutions being offered by political leaders. This is an important reference book to be read more than once.
Rating: 
Summary: All metaphors. No facts
Review: This author is nothing but a medievalist who equates modernity with evil. He has no scientific background (political science is not science) and he is not an economist. In fact he admits: "I have tried to elaborate an INTUITION or FEELING about the future" <emphasis added>. Shirley MacLaine anyone? Everything to him is a metaphor for the human predicament: complexity, high speed, crises, unpredictability, confusion, despair, ad nauseum. For those with an epistemology of reason, there is nothing to be learned from this treatise. For those who are as despondent as the author, well the good news for you guys is that life is utterly hopeless.
Rating:
Summary: All metaphors, no facts
Review: This author is nothing but a medievalist who equates modernity with evil. He has no scientific background (political science is not science) and he is not an economist. In fact he admits: "I have tried to elaborate an INTUITION or FEELING about the future" . Shirley MacLaine anyone? Everything to him is a metaphor for the human predicament: complexity, high speed, crises, unpredictability, confusion, despair, ad nauseum. For those with an epistemology of reason, there is nothing to be learned from this treatise. For those who are as despondent as the author, well the good news for you guys is that life is utterly hopeless.
Rating:
Summary: It represents all what I am concerned about.
Review: This book could be updated daily by more events and phenomena, pointing that Thomas Homer-Dixon knows what he writes about.
September 11 attack, current market collapse, accounting scandals in big corporations, haze over Asia, air pollution in big cities of North America, people getting tropical viruses in West Coast, flooding and torrential rain in Central Europe, severe weather patterns in Canada and predictions of shortage of clean water (UN and Natural Resources Canada warnings), evidence of Gulf Stream warming - we just keep getting more and more of it.
"The Ingenuity Gap" is like a Bible to me. This is still very actual book despite the fact, that it has been written 2 years ago. It is like little multisubject encyclopedia where every intellectual person can find current information about world population statistics, list of economic, social and environmental challenges, knowledge about atmosphere, soil, fertilizers, global warming, human brain and its aging, chaos and complexity theories, evolution of homo sapiens and about modern theories of economical growth. The list is much longer and even if one does not want to support author's message, he will find pleasure to read all this information. Each chapter is supported by a large number of current references, interviews and opinions of leading scientists.
Fantastic research and enormous writing effort Professor Homer! Your powerful message should be mandatory reading in schools and for all who govern and manage human affairs -starting from presidents, ministers and economists and ending with scientists, government workers and park rangers !
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, entertaining, and disturbing
Review: This is an extraordinary book, and it should be widely read. Not only does it make a compelling case that the problems we're creating for ourselves are rapidly outrunning our cleverness, but it's also packed with fascinating discussions of technical matters -- from global warming to fusion power to the evolution of the human brain. Homer-Dixon brings all these issues together within one conceptual framework by looking at the balance between our requirement for "ingenuity" (basically, practical ideas to solve our problems) and our supply of ingenuity. He is largely successful. Amazingly, despite the difficult subjects he discusses, The Ingenuity Gap is a good read, and some passages are quite moving. It's full of stories and colorful anecdotes, drawn from the author's travels around world. I know of few other books that blend storytelling and technical writing so well.This book will be contentious. It will even make some people very angry. It challenges received wisdom over and over again: it raises questions about the sustainability of capitalism, about whether we can rely on science and technology to solve our problems, and about the effects of the Internet on democracy. Techno-libertarians will object, as will advocates of unfettered markets. But it's not easy to dismiss this book, because Homer-Dixon has done his research well (the 60-odd pages of endnotes are packed with citations and fascinating tidbits of information). The Ingenuity Gap's central argument is straightforward, even banal: we may be creating a world that's too complex and unpredictable to manage. However, nowhere else have I seen this idea developed so thoroughly and so convincingly. After I finished this book, I found the world appeared very different, and the future looked considerably less secure.
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