How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization

by Robert J. Ringer

Book Overview

How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization. Robert J. Ringer. 1st Edition 1983 QED/Harper Collins. ISBN 0068596065. 261 page illustrated hardback This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0068596065
• ISBN13: 9780068596066
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book, even if the timing is a bit early

The author hits on the truth with this book, even though the timing is a bit early. He tells the truth about what is happening in Western Civilization, although it's not a pretty picture. He has the courage to step away from the beaten path and announce to his audience that things are not the same as they once were. Subsequent events have demonstrated that the United States is careening towards collapse. I've been following the financials in reference to this country, and everything is pointing to a great financial catastrophe that's going to make the Great Depression pale in comparison. I think that the most intelligent thing to do being faced with this situation is to expect the best, but to prepare for the worst. I'd like to believe that America is as strong as ever, but with record budgetary and trade deficits, waging expensive wars around the world while D.C. burns, the export of virtually the entire manufacturing sector, the record number of bankruptcies, the reliance of new home buyers on adjustable rate mortgages in this interest rate environment, etc., all portends for future financial ruin for the average American. Just because we haven't seen the evidence of the collapse yet doesn't mean that it isn't going to happen. The fundamental elements of the American economy are not pretty, even with the contrived, highly optimistic official statistics. I'm not a doomsayer, but someone who does his homework. The book is a great one, and I believe that it would be of immense benefit for everyone to read this book.

Overwrought

This book is an overly pessimistic view of America's declining moral values, and the consequences that we will all have to suffer. While I agree that moral values have declined (increased drug use and the # of teen-aged single mothers, etc.), I don't agree that the consequences will be so severe so soon. (In fact, most of what is predicted in this book should have happened by now.) In fact, Robert Ringer himself must not think much of this book now. If you look at the list of books he's authored in his other books printed since then, he does not include HOW TO FIND HAPPINESS... in that list. I think this is partly because he sees he was a bit too alarmist in the book, but also because he cannibalized large sections of HOW TO FIND... for his subsequent book MILLION DOLLAR HABITS. Many of the points and stories in that book are in this one (The Battle of Little Big Pie for one). I mainly like this book because many of the points and stories I like in MILLION DOLLAR HABITS are flushed out more fully in this one. So this book is a mixed bag that only the most loyal students of Ringer's need read.