Environmentalist Lester Brown has been assessing the health of the earth's ecosystems for more than two decades. Over that time he has seen increasing signs of break-down until we are now facing issues of near overwhelming complexity and unprecedented urgency. Can we change direction before we go over the edge? In his book *World on the Edge*, Brown attempts to answer that question by systemically laying out both the challenges and the potential policy solutions.
Brown started his career as a farmer, growing tomatoes in southern New Jersey with his younger brother during high school and college. Shortly after earning a degree in agricultural science from Rutgers University in 1955, he spent six months living in rural India where he became intimately familiar with the food/population issue. In 1959 Brown joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service as an international agricultural analyst. Brown earned masters degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Maryland and in public administration from Harvard. Brown has authored or coauthored more than 50 books. One of the world's most widely published authors, his books have appeared in some 40 languages. Among his earlier books are *Man, Land and Food, World Without Borders, and Building a Sustainable Society*. His 1995 book *Who Will Feed China? * challenged the official view of Chinas food prospect, spawning hundreds of conferences and seminars. In November 2001, he published *Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth*, which was hailed by E.O. Wilson as an instant classic. His most recent book is *World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse*. He is the recipient of many prizes and awards, including 23 honorary degrees, a MacArthur Fellowship, the 1987 United Nations' Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize for his "exceptional contributions to solving global environmental problems." More recently, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Italy, the Borgstrm Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, and appointed an honorary professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.