Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

In Self-Devouring Growth, Livingston (social and cultural analyst and historian, New York Univ.) provides an imaginative parable about human society and life on Earth, where "self-devouring growth"--i.e., uninhibited consumption of water, food, and transport--is leading to environmental disaster. Although such growth is occurring across the globe, Livingston focuses on Botswana, an upper-middle-income country in southern Africa. Following a general prologue, the author devotes three chapters to the concept of "animated ecology"--the interplay of different species, including humans, and the natural environment--in order to consider the interrelated connections between water, cattle, and roads in Botswana. She reveals that many boreholes have been dug to supply water for cattle-rearing operations in remote grasslands, so cows are disassociated from family farms and cattle are raised on feedlots for beef exports. This situation has led to the expansion of roads for bringing cows to slaughterhouses (shown in detailed photographs), and cars have become the new status symbol. The author notes that everyone cries foul when poorer countries achieve a standard of living enjoyed elsewhere, yet the global inequality reflected in this complaint suggests the need for collective creative thinking about new forms of growth for life on Earth to survive.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.