A Choice of Catastrophes: The Disasters That Threaten Our World

Rating:
Summary: Will humanity overcome?
Review: I was pleasantly surprised by this book(Dutch translation). I had never before read Asimov, and although I imagined him as a "serious" science-fiction author, the subject and title of this book made me uncertain about what to expect... Would it go down the popular road of feeding on people's fear? As it turns out, there was no need to worry. Asimov uses a nicely balanced approach to this mass-appeal theme to touch many fields of science and even culture. His message is not one of hysteria, but a message of hope. He presents himself as a true Homo Universalis of our time. Not in the sense that he pretends to know everything about anything, the sort of omni-knowledge that died after the Renaissance. But in the sense that he argues like a true World Citizen. A member of the human race instead of belonging to this or that nation/religion/sex/whatever. Of course, the subject of the book lends itself very well for this. So my impression is that Asimov found it more important to awake this feeling in the readers, than to write a sort of disaster-encyclopedia. The book is meant to assist us in becoming conscious about our position in space and time. About our relation to the past, the future and all the phenomenons in the Universe that completely outscale us in size, violence and duration. It is meant to make us feel tiny and insignificant in one way. But certainly also to unite us in a collective battle against the indifferent laws of nature and evolution.

I would recommended this book to anyone with a broad view on the world around us.

Rating:
Summary: How will life end?
Review: In this book, Asimov explores and analyzes the different ways the world, or civilzation, could end (the "catastrophes") and estimates the likelihood and time frame of each one of them. He goes all the way from the macro-catastrophes (heat death of the universe) to the micro-catastrophes (disease and political turmoil).
Very interesting book that brings science and a dose of reality into this consideration of the ultimate demise of mankind.