Learning is the key to mending the world, but it must rest on the development of a more conscious process towards human betterment: a new discipline.

After 11 pages of Quaker history, Boulding writes up his take on global social history up to 1985, and his view that the social sciences must and will have a crucial role in developing effective programs of social betterment. From our later perspective, he is right about some things, mistaken about others, and quite out of date about the challenges we face. His point about the need for good science to address our problems and questions is quite right, of course, and in fact the insights from such new understandings are part of what makes this pamphlet out of date. ( )

PHP #266