An Introduction to Sustainable Development

I am a professor of International Education Policy and economic development at Vanderbilt University and have recently adopted this book for advanced undergraduates and first year graduate students.This text provides, far more than others I reviewed, a thorough overview of the various dimensions of sustainable development (SD). Where other reviews may have faulted the book for tying most of these dimensions to economics, I celebrate this aspect as both realistic and forward thinking. The editorial reviewer is absolutely correct that the "conceptual depth is impressive"; it is also accurate and appropriately interdisciplinary. I suspect some will find the book too rigorous despite a clear need for such a book in the SD field.From the history and bases of SD thought to the international players that determine much of development policy, this text provides readers with a solid tour de force into the world of sustainable development. Its emphases on natural resource allocation, public policy, economic policy, social context and global cooperation offers a strong framework for understanding and analyzing the numerous elements of SD.If there is one area where the book is less than ideal, it is in its treatment of the dimensions of global health. The authors should take a look at the new OPHI Working Papers and UNDP 2010 Human Development Report and recognize that human health constitutes a significant portion of sustainable development. Hopefully, they will include more on this in the second edition.

This is a selected textbook for my course on Sustainability. The author gave a very good description on the environmental development in America. It is well written and easy to read. I have a much better knowledge on this subject after reading the book. The cost and quality of the book are good and it arrived timely. Happy with my purchase.

Unfortunately, my class did not use this book enough to warrant the price. The few sections/ chapters we did work with were written well and contained just the right amount of info.

Badly needs updating. For example, on page 296, it says "not investing now is the best strategy" regarding action on carbon pricing/climate change.

Top quality hard cover! Fast shipping with prime!Good book!

excellent

I like the product but I don't need 20 words to rate something, I can impersonally stop at just saying four stars is how I feel about this book I bought for school.

Firstly, I'll start from positive side. This book is very helpful resource for many numbers and events. Moreover, it is organized (divided into subtitles and sentences are bulleted), but I always lost track along with those many bullets. Some chapters are not really bad. At least I thought that if I need some dates or names of organization, events, I learnt where I can find them easily (but Google is much easier, in fact). That's all my positive words.Now the negative points:Firstly keep in mind that that's introduction. It'll introduce you a lot of concepts which may familiar to you (mainly you feel that you are reading your old diary). Then it won't suggest any solution. From the reader's point of view, this book is totally written from the economist's view therefore overlooked some points regarding environment and failed to mention that environment is part of the sustainable development. Some information is a bit odd. I mean the mentioned standards in this book are not practiced in real-life. Moreover, most of examples biased towards favor of World Bank and other financial international organizations.Overall, this book poorly helped me to understand better about sustainable development due to its simplicity and bias, although I should mention that some (comparatively a few) ideas mentioned through the book were worth to read.

Everything fine

An interesting read to get me started on my MSc and great value

good book

Gained a sound base of knowledge for Chartership application.