Book reviews 191

white whale himself. Readers wit1 judge the book on how welt the concept is explained and by whether or not the collected chapters are able to say anything novel about the politics of global environmental issues, a subject which has re- ceived heightened attention in recent years, and about which there is now a burgeoning literature.

migration data in this section, combining indi- vidual-level and aggregate-level data. The logistic regression methodology might be improved here by adopting a muiti-level modelling approach.

Part III considers ‘Elderly metropolitan cedis- tribution patterns’, with two chapters on the USA and one on Italy. Frey provides a useful compari- son of the mobility patterns of the elderly and nun-elderly, showing that while these were very similar during the 1970s as the ‘rural ranaissance’ became important, more recently, as metropoli- tan areas have once again begun to attract younger migrants, the mobility patterns of the two groups are diverging.

Part IV, ‘The eIderfy mobility transition: three case studies’, is introduced by‘s delightful case study of Phil Rees’s parents! Chanters 10 and 12 in this section suffer &om a lack 0; maps which is, from a geographer’s perspective, a great shame, as both consider patterns of elderly migration redistribution.

This book offers a very useful collection of essays drawing together a wide range of research on elderly migration and providing a large number of references to recent work in the field. The studies do not consider international migration, which must be becoming increasingly important in the patterns of elderly migration, they ignore migration in certain geographjcal areas such as Eastern Europe and generally faif to disaggregate these migrants by variables other than age. The varying mobility patterns of different ethnic groups within a smgle nation would be of interest, for example, and although Chapter 4 includes dala on ethnic groups, it neglects to expand on some interesting racial differences identified in the logistic regression parameters provided. It is always simple, however, to identify omissions from a text of this type and to end on such a note would be unfair in this case. The book is a very useful addition to a growing gerontological literature.

Paul Boyte

Prim G. (ed.) Tkreurs withocrt merPl&T: @cing environmental insecurity. London: Earthscan, 2993. 197 pp. f12.95 paperback.

This volume developed from a series of lectures convened by the Global Security Programme in 19%. The chief aim of Threats without enemies is to introduce the concept and goal of environmental security and to examine some of the problems associated with it. The editor and director of the Global Security Programme, Gwyn Prins, de- scribes environmental security as a concept ‘quite as vast and as efusive as Moby Dick. the great

The volume, we presume, &s p;t together amidst the are-UNCED flusrv of concern for global issues: For example, HRh Prince Charles’s ‘Brundtland Speech’ is reproduced and Prins sets the discussion convincingly within the context of the day’s political crises-the end of the cold war, the Berlin Walt coming down. and the demise of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. These themes are not picked up by aff the authors. however, and some of the contributions fail to satisfy the need to develop a new approach to solving the problems of environmental insecur- ity promised by the editor. For example, there is a focus on increasing world populations but little original analysis of solutions offered.

Recurring themes include the need for a new ethical paradigm, a ‘fundamental shift in atti- tudes’; the recognition that environmental in- security is not a natural state, despite the fact that the natural world is in continual flux, but is man made; and that the radical transformation of the earth by human hands, for example global &mate change and the ‘greenhouse effect’, is already a reality. This point has been made more eloquently by Bill McKibben in the &td qf narwe.

The need to incorporate the precautionary principle into policy-making is highlighted. but it is unclear how this might be achieved in these times of realpolitik. The debate between realism and idealism is returned to in several chapters, and the need to modify conventional contempor- ary political theory and practice in order to achieve environmental security is acknowledged. However, it also argues that the essence of environmental insecurity is ‘to be found in the fact that the mode of achievement of European thought and discovery is coofrontational. . and has cast nature as an adversary to be conquered’. These are not new ideas and one suspects the volume may simply be another treatise on sustainahte development which adopts new termi- nology and casts a new slant on an old issue.

Katrina Brown Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, University of East An&

Burnett, A. The western Pacific: chnllenge of sustainable growth. London: Earthscan, 1992 (paperback 1993). 280 pp. E15.95 paperback.

The western Pacific is a huge area. It is marked by great diversity. Extremes of economic develop- ment, wealth, control over resources. government