Acknowledgments Part I. Big Problems, Small Nation Solutions Chapter 1. The Big Problem: Elite-Directed Growth Chapter 2. Finding the Right Size: Why Small Nations Succeed Part II. Small Nations Show the Way Chapter 3. Small Nation Market Capitalism: The Agoria Path Chapter 4. Ecodemia: Small Nation Cooperative Economies Chapter 5. Arcadia: Environmentally Friendly Small Nations Part III. How Small Nations Could Reshape the World Chapter 6. Small Nation Solutions for the Pacific Northwest, 2025 Chapter 7. United Small Nations of America: Why and How Chapter 8. United Small Nations of the World: Confronting Poverty and Global Warming Selected Bibliography Index About the Author

Bodley (anthropology, Washington State Univ.) argues that many contemporary global problems can be mitigated—even resolved—by reshaping the political and economic order. Central to this is the issue of scale: 'Small nations can solve human problems because they are the right size, because they have the right priorities, and because if they grow too large they can segment rather than concentrate social power.' In Bodley's estimation, ten million people is the rough upper limit for small nations. In documenting his solution to all manner of ills, Bodley embarks on a global tour that ranges from Scandinavia to Costa Rica, and from indigenous communities in the Americas to island peoples in the Caribbean and Pacific. A society's size, he believes, is more important than levels of technology or ideological detail. That small societies offer advantages, particularly that of propinquity, is unquestionable, but many of the relatively small states that Bodley cites also have a long history of democratic governance and corresponding institutions. . . . Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.