Book Reviews : Lester R. Brown, et al., State of the World: 1987, A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Towards a Sustainable Society. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987, $ 9.95 (paper)

There is a growing literature on the world economy and ecology generated by governmental and nongovernmental agencies in recognition of the increasing interdependence of the world. World Bank, International Monetary Fund and United Nations agencies publish a variety of reports on these subjects each year. The Worldwatch Institute, a nonprofit research organization, has been publishing annual state of the world reports since 1984. The intent of these policy-oriented interdisciplinary reports is to measure worldwide progress towards achieving a sustainable society by not merely describing how things are but indicating whether they are getting better or worse. The reports, which discuss different issues each year, have been published under the guidance and active involvement of Lester R. Brown, Project Director and President of the institute. The authors claim that the reports, published in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and English, use information sources from around the world. However, most of the sources appear to be Western; this may create some bias in conceptualization. The 268 pages of this report, the fourth, are divided into eleven chapters from which the authors conclude that in 1987 we are doing worse in building a sustainable