Wolfgang Sachs is one of the most thoughtful intellectuals to deal with the dual crisis in the Western world's relations with nature and social justice. In this book readers will find trenchant and elegant explorations of some of the foremost issues the world faces at the beginning of the new century: efficiency--the mantra of our times; speed--the love affair with modernity; globalization--a market inevitability and the juggernaut of history?; sustainability--oxymoron as rhetoric; development--the 20th century's great undelivered promise; limits--a new principle for the coming century.