This book is divided into two sections, the age of economics and the age of culture. Schafer, who was originally an economic historian, covers the age of economics with insightful scholarship, concluding that the age has provided humankind with important advances in productivity, science and technology. The age has also however had devastatingly harmful environmental consequences, including global warming, depletion of natural resources and overpopulation. For Shafer, the solution is to end the age of economics and begin an age of culture, a new Renaissance, which would focus human activity on the broadly defined arts, sports, and other fulfilling noneconomic activities. Schafer's book is a worthwhile theoretical contribution to a growing literature that advocates cessation of economic growth in favor of human development in noneconomic realms. A chapter or two including practical ideas for advancing a cultural Renaissance would make this book more useful.