Out of control

Rarely has there been a book as explosive and challenging as this brilliant analysis of today's massive geopolitical disorder. The triumphant collapse of communism has brought neither economic stability nor social democracy to the former Soviet Union. Nor, for that matter, to the rest of the world. We are living in a time of fragmentation: increasing disunity in Europe, dangerous eruptions in the Islamic republics, growing disparity between the world's rich and poor, and the evils of the "permissive cornucopia" in America which, through overstimulation of material desires and sensual self-gratification, is leading to the collapse of Western moral and spiritual values. In short, we are living in a philosophical climate that is "out of control." It is Zbigniew Brzezinski's firm belief that we must draw both moral and political lessons from the "megadeaths" of the twentieth century, a century in which at least 167 million people were slaughtered in the name of the "politics of organized insanity," or the "metamyths" of such dictators as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, among others. Unless we can practice selfrestraint derived from a moral commitment in the quest for global democratic "interdependence," we stand destined to risk again our very own survival.