This is a collection of explorations of some of the foremost issues the world faces at the end of the century. It considers the crisis of the Western world's relations with nature and social justice, examining: efficiency - the mantra of our times; speed - the love affair with modernity; globalization - a market inevitability and the juggernaut of history; sustainability - oxymoron as rhetoric; development - the 20th century's great undelivered promise; and limits - a new principle for the coming century.