Neil Harrison has written a clear and concise book that addresses important questions related to the ambiguous and multiple meanings. He analyzes, in the postmodern tradition, three dominant, yet often conflicting, policy narratives of sustainable development. These are efficiency, equity, and ethics. For each narrative, Harrison explains and evaluates the premises and arguments borrowed from various social, economic, or political theories. Then, over the course of five short chapters, he highlights logical inconsistencies that make viable policy goals literally impossible to achieve. The author reveals the conceit often hidden in these narratives and, in turn, promotes greater humility. His arguments are sharp, but his purpose is not mere deconstruction. In fact, Harrison often notes the elements of a narrative that might be made to work and that should be preserved in some fashion.

Still, Harrison concludes quite forcefully that “sustainable development is a Holy Grail that does not exist. It is a legend, a myth…. [The term] cannot be objectively defined, cannot be known” (p. 99). So what would people have to do to make development sustainable, which is the goal the author establishes on the book's first page (p. vii)? The answer is certainly not found in traditional literatures on economics, politics, or environmental ethics. The chapters on efficiency, for example, describe and critique biases in the neoclassical vision of the market and then dissect alleged technological fixes, which are not likely to be developed in the current political–economic context. The chapters on equity likewise explain why neither redistribution of wealth nor international cooperation is about to occur. Finally, Harrison demonstrates that no society can embrace ecologically ethical policies without first embracing environmental ideals. This presents a bootstrapping dilemma, since ideas cannot be changed absent education policies that promote ecology.

Harrison offers his own recommendations in the final chapter. He borrows from the postmodern tradition to find metanarratives that might be able to transcend barriers across the political, economic, and social divides he has identified (p. 101). From this perspective, the author derives a need for a far more participatory politics and an ecological view of science that values flexibility and adaptability. Data need to be accumulated, and education promoted, he asserts, so as to match the most appropriate policy initiatives to local needs. Perhaps most controversially, Harrison wants sustainable development to be “the central concern of political discourse” (p. 118).

If most of these prescriptions seem somewhat vague and (at least to the informed reader) mundane, Harrison is unapologetic. On the last page, he returns to an earlier admonition (Chapter 2) that policies supporting sustainable development (or virtually any policy goal) “are always stabs in the dark, best guesses in an uncertain world” (p. 118). Harrison's broad challenge to “rational” economics, science, and policymaking, however, might tempt readers to question whether his preferred choices are better than those he critiques. After all, the author warns that sustainable development seems to be “the ultimate `postmodern' issue” and “can be interpreted to support any agenda, or objective” (p. 102).

Consider Harrison's plea for education. While the author means his claims to be taken differently, it is difficult to imagine that college administrators will be persuaded to build their general education or liberal arts curriculums around the idea of sustainable development precisely “because it can mean everything to everybody” (p. 118). Harrison stresses that education should be sensitive to ambiguity and that teachers should take diverse perspectives into account when considering something as elusive as sustainable development. In practice, however, his warnings literally seem to imply that nothing is valid and that everything is valid.

Why should an idea like the precautionary principle (pp. 16, 111), for example, presumptively favor environmental goals? A probusiness advocate might argue that caution demands favoring jobs and economic well-being over “risky” policies to defend the environment. During the Cold War, “worst-case planning” meant spending hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear weapons to promote “security.” No one should assume that environmental goals would come out on top if the most basic societal goals started to be compared. Harrison's argument for community and participatory politics could even subvert environmental objectives. In actual debates about forest policies, loggers of the U.S. Pacific Northwest apparently prefer to retain their jobs to the preservation of owl habitats.

Anyone who has perused the right's antienvironmental literature (e.g., see Ronald Bailey, Eco-Scam, 1993), quickly learns how postmodern insights and arguments can be turned against environmentalists. Scientists have often been wrong about past warnings of ecological or resource collapse, the skeptics assert, so why should anyone make costly policies based upon their latest warnings about global warming? The problem is magnified when a scientist or two challenges the environmental views.

Postmodernists, ironically, might fault Harrison for failing to embrace their project more fully. He acknowledges that his “approach is not specifically postmodern” (p. 112) and at times he seems to favor the employment of both material and instrumental measures. For instance, he advocates substantial increases in aid to poor countries, which would essentially bribe them to support sustainable development. He also supports higher taxes on consumption to influence consumer demand for resources. Yet material levers distort dialogue and would not necessarily promote an ecological mindset.

Harrison's book seems most useful for educators who teach undergraduate or master's-level courses about the environment. Students would benefit from the author's succinct and lucid critique of prevailing economic, political, and ethical theories and from his application of postmodern theorizing. No doubt, Harrison's arguments would provoke interesting and useful classroom exchanges.