Profits In Business Always Depend On The

Europe And North America, We Are Told, Are Less Dependent On Energy-intensive Heavy Industry Than In The 1960s And 1970s. It Seems We Squeeze More Gdp Out Of A Barrel Of Oil Than In Those Benighted Days.

The Rise To Prominence Of The Saudi Novel In Arabic Is The Great Man-bites-dog Of Recent World Literature. Saudi Arabia Is A Country Without A Free Press, Where European Styles And Forms Are Distrusted And Where The Female Half Of The Population Became Literate Only In This Generation.

Even Before He Came To Power In 1997, Gordon Brown Promised To Change The Accounts To Parliament From Simple Litanies Of Cash In And Cash Out, To A More Commercial System That Took Notice Of The Public Property The Departments Were Using. This System Is Known As Resource Accounting.

There Are Signs That The Age Of Petroleum Has Passed Its Zenith. Adjusted For Inflation, A Barrel Of Crude Oil Now Sells For Three Times Its Long-run Average. The Large Western Oil Companies, Which Cartellised The Industry For Much Of The 20th Century, Are Now Selling More Oil Than They Find, And Are Thus In The Throes Of Liquidation.

The World Dominion Of Western Thought, Forms Of Organisation, Technology And Military Force Is Not God-given, Nor Eternal, Nor Greatly Appreciated By The Rest Of The World.