{"product_id":"dark-age-ahead-9780679313090","title":"Dark Age Ahead","description":"\u003cp\u003eVisionary thinker Jane Jacobs uses her authoritative work on urban life and economies to show us how we can protect and strengthen our culture and communities.  In Dark Age Ahead  Jane Jacobs identifies five pillars of our culture that we depend on but which are in serious decline: community and family; higher education; the effective practice of science; taxation and government; and self-policing by learned professions. The decay of these pillars  Jacobs contends  is behind such ills as environmental crisis  racism and the growing gulf between rich and poor; their continued degradation could lead us into a new Dark Age  a period of cultural collapse in which all that keeps a society alive and vibrant is forgotten.  But this is a hopeful book as well as a warning. Jacobs draws on her vast frame of reference -- from fifteenth-century Chinese shipbuilding to zoning regulations in Brampton  Ontario -- and in highly readable  invigorating prose offers proposals that could arrest the cycles of decay and turn them into beneficent ones. Wise  worldly  full of real-life examples and accessible concepts  this book is an essential read for perilous times.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45651682689077,"sku":"ByrdShop_0679313095","price":42.63,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780679313090.jpg?v=1781837385","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/dark-age-ahead-9780679313090","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}