Beyond Terror: The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World Kindle Edition

Beyond Terror by Chris Abbott, Paul Rogers & John Sloboda"Beyond Terror" is a book about the assessment of various threats to global security and the development of sustainable responses to those threats. The authors make persuasive and succinct arguments on how to address such important issues. This 128-page book is composed of the following six chapters: 1. A Clear and Present Danger?, 2. Climate Change, 3. Competition Over Resources, 4. Marginalisation of the Majority World, 5. Global Militarisation, and 6. The Way Forward.Positives:1. Accessible, comprehensive and succinct. Straightforward prose.2. Well researched and well written book.3. Excellent format. Each chapter begins with a chapter-appropriate quote and ends with a summary.4. The authors have a clear vision of what they wanted to convey and did a great job of getting their points through.5. The authors place the threat of terrorism in proper perspective.6. The comprehensive research led the authors to the following global threats of today: Climate Change, Competition over Resources, Marginalisation of the Majority World and Global Militarisation.7. Thought-provoking and interesting takes on very important issues.8. Fair and even-handed. The authors did a good job of avoiding personal attacks. The book is about what our problems are and what we can do about them.9. Many interesting facts and references. As an example, find out who is the greatest polluter of the planet.10. Climate change...just the facts.11. Interesting and somewhat controversial take on nuclear energy.12. The problem of limited resources. A focus on oil but water gets some attention as well.13. Great quotes, "Poverty is the worst form of violence" by Mahatma Gandhi.14. Good use of charts and illustration to illustrate points visually.15. HIV/AIDS and its global impact.16. Great insight on understanding terrorism and political violence.17. Global wealth and the problem of equitable distribution.18. A sound assessment on global militarisation.19. A look at why current strategies are just plain wrong.20. A comprehensive and practical list of what we can do to address the issues the authors have brought forward. A `sustainable security', in other words, sustainable approaches to terrorism.21. Links worked great and great resources provided for reference sakeNegatives:1. Not as fully revised and updated as I had hoped.2. In a short book like this don't expect to get a lot of depth. It's more like an appetizer yet it does get its main points across.3. The book never mentions the empowerment of women as a potential solution. It is known that societies that empower women tend to be healthier societies in practically every aspect.In summary, I enjoyed reading this book while simultaneously learning some new things. The authors did a great job of presenting their points and provided compelling arguments in support of them. The book gets to the point and can be used as reference material. It also lays out a sound call for action. Good book, worthwhile read.Further recommendations: The Crash Course" by Chris Martenson, "Merchants of Doubt" by Erik M. Conway, "Science Under Siege" by Kendrick Frazier, "Storms of my Grandchildren" by James Hansen, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Science..." Sherry Seethaler, and "Changing Planet, Changing Health" by Paul R. Epstein.

About to board an international flight, I spied this neat little book from the Oxford Research Group in the bookstore and promptly purchased it. BEYOND TERROR is based on Global Responses to Global Threats: Sustainable Security for the 21st Century, a nearly two year research project aimed at assessing the various threats to global security and practical responses to those threats.The conclusion of the research project outlines a different view of the fundamental threats that we all face, rather than terrorism; namely the major threats to global security come from four interconnected trends:Climate ChangeCompetition over ResourcesMarginalisation of the Majority WorldGlobal MilitarisationI especially liked the comments regarding the way forward to create global security, being not about inventing solutions - we already have these. The way forward is about cultivating the political will to IMPLEMENT the solutions.Definitely food for thought, and at around 120 pages of A5 size, a great way to absorb a "synopsis" of the original research, plus plenty of websites and further reference sources listed in the footnotes.

Required for a grad school class but it quickly became one of my favorites, and I reference it often.