Dark Age Ahead By Jane Jacobs        Random House Canada 2004 I don’t usually read doom and gloom books but when the author is the renowned Jane Jacobs, I sit up and take notice. Jane is the legendary author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which has had a profound effect on urban planning and city architecture in North America. She is a keen observer of our institutions and behavior, and a respected consultant and adviser to senior government officials. She’s a wise woman who writes wonderfully well. Jacobs sets the tone of her book immediately with the words: “This is both a gloomy and a hopeful book. The subject itself is gloomy. A Dark Age is a culture’s dead end.” We tend to think of Dark Ages as things that happened long ago and only once. But, as she points out, they happen more frequently (and more recently) than we realize. And signs are appearing that bear worrisome similarities to the early onset of dark ages in the past. Her message is that we’re not immune to the possibility of this happening again if we don’t heed the signals and take remedial action. She warns that “time for corrective action is finite: culture resides mainly in people’s heads and in the examples people set….People get used to losses and take absences for granted.” Eventually “even the memory of what has been lost becomes lost.” The book identifies five central pillars of our society that show serious signs of decay: Community and Family (which are closely linked). For example, almost half of marriages end in divorce; The closeness of neighborhoods has been eroded by the automobile. Higher Education. She notes the trend toward “credentialing” versus “educating” where a degree has become “the currency of the realm.” Science and Technolgy. Jacobs cites several recent examples of researchers and experts failing to solve problems because they abandoned the basic principles of “the scientific state of mind”, even ignoring empirical evidence that was right in front of their faces. Governmental Representation and Taxation. She uses the terms “subsidiarity” (government works best when it is closest to the people it serves and the needs it addresses) and “fiscal accountability” (institutions collecting and disbursing taxes work most responsibly when they are transparent to those providing the money). She states that both concepts have almost disappeared from the modern world. There is a disconnection between public treasuries and local domestic needs. Self-Regulation of the Learned Professions. Cover-ups and slowness to take action in dealing with suspected wrong-doing add to the problems of the original crime. She talks about the Enron scandal as an example of massive fraud in which their accounting firm (which was supposed to detect and report such corruption) actually participated in the fraud and then covered up their participation – including the massive shredding of documents. Using examples as varied as the collapse of the Roman Empire, the loss of aboriginal cultures in North America, the profound impact of The Great Depression, how automobiles have destroyed communities and the1995 Chicago heat wave that killed hundreds of people, Jane Jacobs has written a book that is fascinating, compelling and urgently important. She is also constructive in suggesting solutions – the first of which is that we need to overcome our denial that a Dark Age is possible in America. As she notes, formerly vigorous cultures fell prey to arrogant self-deception (what the Greeks called hubris) which is frighteningly evident in today’s world and which keeps us from adapting successfully to new realities. History is dynamic. What happened before could happen again. “Dark Age Ahead” is an excellent place to start in learning about how our world is changing and what we have to do to stabilize our situation and then correct it. It makes for great reading.